


All Things Incarnate

by succeeding



Series: Glass [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dick Grayson Has Issues, Dick Grayson Has Panic Attacks, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Bad at Feelings, Everyone In The Batfamily Is Bad At Feelings, Explicit Language, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Jason Todd, Rape/Non-con Elements, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/succeeding/pseuds/succeeding
Summary: Dick's not doing so well at the moment. His brothers and Bruce have discovered all that he's kept secret for so long, and it's bad. Worse than bad. He hasn't felt like this in years, and he can't even conceal it now. With no place to hide and reminders at every turn, it's only a matter of time before something breaks.OR: Dick deals with the fallout of the Batfamily finding out about his absolutely horrid sexual history, and no oneat allhas a good time.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Glass [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745233
Comments: 329
Kudos: 998





	1. Proving Grounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is darker than _Hat Full of Glass_. Blanket content warnings apply. If you're in a sensitive place, please think before reading, because this fic covers pretty much everything. Dick's thoughts are distorted, unreliable, and negative, and the entire Batfamily is full of dysfunctional people doing dysfunctional things while attempting to deal with life.

Today they’re in the massive munitions room of Slade’s main hideout. Before coming here, Dick had never seen so many weapons in one place. There are entire crates of ammunition and grenades and knives, and all sorts of firearms on the walls. 

Slade’s been making him learn what they are and how to use them. Dick hates that he’s good at it. 

Slade is holding a black polymer rifle with a large scope and bipod legs that are currently folded up. It looks different from the rifles the run-of-the-mill thugs in Gotham use-- more professional, somehow. More deadly. 

“Blaser R93,” he says, “chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum.” 

He draws back the bolt and looks into the chamber, then hands the rifle to Dick. He holds it as best he can. It’s long, and he’s small for his age. His left arm extends out as it attempts to support the barrel. It’s not easy. 

“Riveting,” says Dick dully.

“It’s _very_ accurate, and the .338LM is a wonderful cartridge for big game hunting.”

“Humans aren’t big game,” Dick says. 

“No,” Slade says, “but they are game.” 

“... You’re despicable.” 

"I'm a businessman."

"You _kill_ people."

“Killing happens to be my business,” says Slade, “and business is very, very good.” 

“You're the worst person I’ve ever met.” 

“Then you haven’t met very many people,” Slade replies. He reaches out to adjust the positioning of the rifle. Dick doesn’t resist. “In time, you’ll grow to thank me. I’m patient.” 

Patient. He’s trying so hard to be patient. He knows Bruce is looking for him, and so is his team, and it’s only a matter of time before they find him-- right? 

But that’s what he’d thought a month ago, and a month before that, up until the very beginning of his capture. They’d come get him in the next hour, the next day, the next week. He’s been holding on, minute by minute, and with every tick of the clock his hands slip further down the life rope he’s been clutching since the day he was brought here. 

He doesn’t know how much longer he can wait. 

“You’ll be going with me this time,” Slade says. 

Dick puts the rifle down onto the table. 

“What.”

“Did I stutter? You’ll be going with me.”

“I’m not going to fight anyone for you, much less _kill them_.”

"I don't expect you to. We've got a long way to go before you're ready for that."

He says it like Dick is a voluntary participant, and as if he’s training him for something ordinary. A triathlon. A swim meet. Hell, even a chess tournament. Any of the things that kids might be working toward now at Gotham Academy, while he’s here, ten feet away from a supervillain. 

“I think you can find better subjects for your misplaced moralism,” he continues. “He’s an embezzler who also deals in child porn.”

“As if _child porn_ bothers you,” Dick scoffs.

Slade hits him. Not hard, and with just the back of his hand, but it still stings, and Dick tastes blood. 

“You,” Slade says, “are not a child.” 

He’s right. Dick isn’t a child-- hasn’t been for long enough, anyway. He’s fourteen and has lived more than people ten or twenty years his elder, and if it were a decision between himself and a kid his age having to be here, he’d choose himself a thousand times over. He'd choose himself over anyone at _all_ , because he’s been trained for this, prepared for it, and it’s his own shortcoming if he’s failed to put those teachings into practice. 

He remembers the SERE manual Bruce had given him to read when he was nine. He’d found it fascinating, even if much of its content hadn’t been applicable to those living in and operating out of a major urban center like Gotham. It had information on how to capture fish without line or lure, and how to make sunglasses out of bark to prevent snow blindness, and other outdoors survival methods that he’d practiced with enthusiasm out in the Manor’s woods. 

What he remembers most of all, though, are the words of advice meant for those who might become prisoners of war: _there is nothing more important to survival than the will to live and resist_. 

It went on to enumerate the reasons why the soldier should want to live. They must remember their responsibility toward their fellow soldiers, and what it was like to be home, and how much their friends and family loved them. And above all, they were duty-bound to escape, or to make attempts to escape.

Dick remembers all that. He does. It’s just-- the line between _then_ and _now_ is beginning to blur. He knows it. He doesn’t want it, but his level of resistance is changing. Here he is, standing passively, listening to Slade as he plans a murder, and there are weapons all around, and he’s doing _nothing_. 

Slade’s not even wearing his body armor. He never does, when he’s alone with Dick. It’s as if he’s flaunting his superiority by making himself so deliberately exposed. 

And if Dick had more of a spine, if he could stomach it, there’s so many things he could do. Those knives, the ones with wicked serrations and hawksbill curved blades-- Slade had said those were especially good at rending flesh, and his limbs are so very vulnerable. If --and it’s a big if-- he were able to get close enough, he could sever an Achilles tendon, and that would distract Slade long enough for him to get somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere but here. 

Bruce's life tenet is that killing people is wrong, and Dick agrees with him, and all the rest he has to say: that the justice system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best of what they’ve got; that everyone has the right to legal counsel, and to be tried by the courts; that only by adhering to its own restrictions can the law uphold itself. 

And he thinks about the hundreds of scenes they’ve responded to over the past six years he’s been Robin, all the robberies and rapes and murders. In some of those cases, the victim had fought back, despite the perpetrator's weapons or superior size or element of surprise. 

He remembers a woman on the sidewalk, dress torn and pantyhose ruined. She’d found a brick and slammed it into her attacker’s head as he’d been busy unbuckling his pants. He lay on the ground, skull caved in and bits of pink brain matter exposed, as the woman huddled into herself on the steps of a closed storefront a dozen feet away.

While Dick called the authorities via radio, Bruce had crouched down before her and said, “You’re going to be okay. Help is on the way.” He didn’t mention that she’d killed her attacker, but then, she had to have known it already. 

On the way home in the Batmobile, Dick had said, "She killed that man."

He received a grunt in reply. 

“Is she going to be charged?” 

“... That’s not for you or me to decide.”

He had wondered then, and still wonders now, what Bruce really thought about it. He hadn’t elaborated, no matter how much Dick prodded or pried, and sometimes a seditious little voice snuck into his head, asking, _What if he doesn’t know how he feels?_

It made Dick think of the way Bruce’s parents had died, and how drastically different he’d be if perhaps Thomas Wayne had found a brick, too. Would Bruce have grown up to be Batman anyway? Would he still be strictly against killing?

Right now, that line of inquiry is useless. Even if Bruce didn’t condemn those who killed in self-defense, Dick’s different from them. He’s chosen to live this way, to make these sacrifices. It would be wrong to justify it by pretending he were a regular civilian. 

What would he say, if Dick inadvertently killed Slade as he attempted to escape? That would be an irremovable stain, something he’d never be free from. Bruce might give him a hug and tell him a sweet lie about it not being his fault, but....

He’d know. He’d know how Bruce really felt. The rules are different for people like them, and, just like Slade said, he’s not a child any longer. 

“Why are you bothering to do it yourself?” Dick asks. “Don’t you have minions for stuff like this?” 

“I do,” he says, “but I want to take you personally. Classic sniper setup-- rooftop location, target within easy distance, no interference… It’s a perfect learning opportunity for you.” 

And he is learning. It’s what he hates most, along with the confinement and degradation. He’s learning things from this horrible man.

The worst part of all is that he’s _trying_ now. If he makes an effort, then Slade knows it, and he doesn’t get punished. He’s become what Slade calls a “decent shot”, and the praise makes his stomach turn. He’d started Dick off shooting at simple circular bullseyes, but now he’s changed them to targets shaped like human torsos. When he gets a heart or brain or hip shot, Slade pats his shoulder and says, “Good boy.” 

It’s disgusting, being ‘good’ for someone like Slade, having his approval. It’s even worse that Dick does these things because he doesn't want to be hit. He should be strong enough to refuse to cooperate, strong enough to take the punishment. But he isn't and he's not. There were things he said he'd never do, and yet… look at him now. He's degraded and degrading. Maybe one day the threat of violence won’t be needed to propel him-- maybe it’ll be like Slade says, and he’ll be _grateful_. 

That’s his fear. That’s his nightmare. 

“Where are we going for it?” 

“Gotham. Don’t think about trying anything.” 

“It’s my duty to escape,” he says, realizing too late that he’s parroting the SERE manual. 

“Right.” Slade’s face is amused. “Give it your best shot-- pun intended.” 

It burns, this casual disregard for anything he says, as if he’s so little of a threat that he can be taken back to his _home city_ already. As if he can be dragged along like an inanimate object, and be trusted to do nothing as he watches a man be murdered. 

Slade is arrogant. He’d said that Dick was the best of his team, and maybe that’s correct, but he’s not acting like it now. He’s treating Dick as if he’s harmless, and has no will of his own. 

If he stays any longer, it might come to be true. 

So this. This is it. If it’s the only path to freedom, it’s the one he has to take. 

“How tall,” he says, “is the building?”

* * *

When they arrive at the Manor, no one’s in sight. Even Alfred has disappeared. The front foyer is hushed, draped in a soundproof cloth that filters the world and makes it so very soft. 

“Let me down,” Dick says, and then, when the response isn’t immediate, repeats, “ _Let me down._ ” 

Bruce does. He settles him onto the hand-carved entryway bench, and crouches before him. 

“Chum,” Bruce says, “are you with me?” 

His voice is gentle, and he’s being _so damn careful_ to spare Dick’s feelings. Somehow it's even worse than outright disregard. He’s overwhelmed by a blitzing impulse to pull away, to wipe that concern off his face, to take the lamp off the table beside him and smash it into himself to prove that he’s not weak. It’d be easy. Bruce trusts him and if he were to strike quick enough, he wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Dick’s hand twitches towards the lamp and he puts it to a halt. 

“Do you think I’m weak?” He already knows the answer. Who the hell thinks things like this, does things like this? “Do you think I can’t manage anymore?”

“Of course not,” Bruce says, and Dick wants to believe him, but his drawn eyebrows and rigid shoulders reveal him as a liar. 

He stands up and takes a few steps back, ignoring the pain. He leans against the front door behind him; suddenly he wants nothing more than to distance himself. He’s become chilled almost immediately without Bruce’s body heat, and he reaches to pull his coat tighter-- or, rather, Bruce’s coat. He’s incapable of keeping himself warm, or even dressing himself for the weather. 

He really is pathetic. 

Having a major malfunction has screwed with his chronology, because it seems like he’s only blinked when Bruce approaches him with a blanket, gingerly, like he’s a spooked horse. 

“You’re shivering,” he says. “Please wrap this around yourself.”

He should’ve replied with something like, _Only if you promise that I’m not weak_ , but the sight of that old wool blanket is too much like home to refuse. His injured feet move as if by their own volition-- one step, two, three, and finally onto the marble of the hallway where Bruce stands. After so much time in the dark, his eyes flinch away from the lights and Bruce reaches out to dim them. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he drapes the blanket around Dick’s shoulders. 

“Thank you,” Dick says, numb fingers awkward in the blanket’s weft and warp. It’s embarrassing, being wrapped in a blanket like this, like he’s an infant in need of coddling. 

“Will you let me check out your feet?” Bruce asks, as if that’s a normal and routine question. Dick nods, hesitant, and his father takes him by the hand. He’s led to Bruce’s unnecessarily large bathroom and directed to sit on the side of the jacuzzi. Then he's handed a pill and a glass of water.

“A small dose of Ativan,” Bruce says, "just to take the edge off.” 

Dick swallows it. Anything, if it’ll help this misery go down. Then, Bruce retrieves his first aid supplies and sits on the floor beside the tub. 

“This isn’t good,” he says. His eyes are obscured by his strong brow but he imagines that they’re surveying the cuts that crisscross his soles. Dick wishes he’d clarify. The state of his feet, his recent behavior, or both?

Time passes. He’s Bruce’s Judas, so unworthy of this love and care. 

"Can you promise me that this won't happen again?"

When Dick doesn’t answer, Bruce squeezes his hand. 

“Can you?” he repeats, and Dick wishes that he were only imagining what he hears in Bruce’s voice, because it’s not _like_ that. It’s not like that. He’d had a reason. It was justifiable, but even if he tried to get Bruce to understand, he’d just assume that he was, that he was, that he--

“...Yes,” he says finally, feeling vindictive pleasure in the lie: look, he’s not the only one. And it seems that Bruce wants to believe him as much as he’d wanted to believe Bruce. He doesn’t challenge him on it.  
  
“If you’re having difficulties,” Bruce says, “you need to ask for help.”

Dick stares down at his bandaged feet. They dangle in the air like dead doves caught in a power line. 

“Easy for you to say,” he says, and although he knows better he feels almost victorious. 

It’s illogical to blame Bruce for being able to cope with things that he just can’t hack. It’s not right to resent him for his ability to weather every storm untouched. People can’t help being themselves-- it’s like despising a bird for flying, or a tree for growing tall. People have always-- people will always-- that is to say, there are _designated roles_ in society, and no matter how much he wants to deny it, he’s always been the cheap trick. 

“Am I…” Bruce seems lost for words, which would be alarming if he didn’t feel so drained. “What else have I done that’s hurt you?”  
  
"You haven’t done anything,” Dick says. Bruce replies with silence, as if to say that he disagrees. The only noise in the room is of the fountain humidifier trickling in the corner. Through the window he sees nothing but dark and darkness, but he still wants to be there. Outside.

It’s a feeling he’s never really gotten over, even now. Even when it’s winter he sleeps with the window cracked a bit, and a few times a year he spends the night in his childhood treehouse _just because_ \-- because what? He has to be able to escape if he needs it? He has to have that fresh air? That’s a fucking ridiculous reason, but it’s true.

Fish spend their entire lives in little glass bowls, rabbits in hutches of four square feet. They can see out but they can’t _get_ out, except at the whim of the owner, and though it’s stupid, he identifies. For three months he’d thought that if he could get away he’d be _free_. When he finally got outside he realized he’d never be, even when the sky above him was endless, really endless, and the earth beneath his feet unraveled everywhere. Anywhere.

Humans are just another animal to be confined.  
  
“You haven’t done anything,” Dick says. He feels as if he’s been thrown into an icy lake. The floor’s radiant heating isn’t helping, not at all. “And even if you had, what good would blaming you do? It’s already happened. Blame is just a way to assign retribution.”

“... Alright,” Bruce says. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”

As if Dick’s not telling the truth. 

Why doesn’t he want to blame someone for all that went on? It’s not because he doesn’t hate what happened, and especially not because he adheres to that stupid maxim he’s just told Bruce. All he’s ever done in his life has been selfish and mean, so why would this be any different? The simple truth is that he doesn’t want to state something that applies to him, too. Somehow criticizing his betters seems absurd when he’s done things from which he can never be absolved.  
  
And Bruce says he should _talk_ about these things? Of course he does. He’s a wonderful dad, and all good parents care about their children’s issues. But Dick had thought that he'd know by now that even the best parenting can’t insulate people from themselves. They have to learn the things they need to know through trial and error, and more error, and more, until they trip over their own weak legs and fall bloody to the ground. 

So what Bruce wants him to do-- what he _says_ he wants him to do-- is something he _won’t_ do. He just won’t. It doesn’t make any difference. He’s spent ten years immuring what happened and he’s still the biggest failure he knows. He doesn’t want to resurrect the past, doesn’t want to hear his voice sullied by those torturous memories. 

Bruce doesn’t want to hear it either, regardless of what he tells him. 

Bruce, he thinks, understands, deep at the heart of it all.

* * *

The next day he wakes up in Bruce’s bed, and he doesn’t remember ever having fallen asleep. 

He feels better. It’s silly, that being in his father’s room still comforts him, long after he’s become an adult, but-- 

Bruce’s presence had been like a weighted blanket, pressing down gently and lulling him into a sleep where there was no pain or humiliation. He feels like he’s eight years old again, rushing to him after a nightmare and taking refuge in his big bed and heavy covers and strong arms. 

Bruce has never made him feel afraid. 

He gets up, noting the bandaging on his feet. Bruce had been thorough, although it wasn’t as if he ever did rush jobs to begin with. They’re so cushioned that it doesn’t hurt much to walk.

He goes downstairs. It’s almost two in the afternoon. The boys are at school but will be home soon. He doesn’t want to have to see them. He loves them, he loves them so much, but today, he can’t handle it. Tim’s exacting attention, as if he’s examining him under a microscope. Damian’s reticence and unacknowledged need for love. 

It’s too overwhelming.

He passes Alfred, who nods at him as if nothing’s wrong at all and says, “Good afternoon, Master Dick. There is fresh baklava on the kitchen counter, and a chicken Caesar salad awaits you in the refrigerator.” 

He’s not hungry, but he says, “Sounds delicious, Alfred,” and heads toward the kitchen. He snags one of Tim’s energy drinks to help wipe away the emotional hangover that shrouds him. Then it’s off to the living room. He shouldn’t spend too much time in his bedroom. The others will bother him about being a recluse, and besides, staying in one area for too long-- not good. 

He’s staring at the TV, flipping the remote to give his hands something to do, and he’s so dreamy and dissociated that he doesn’t realize Jason is there until his voice is a few feet behind him. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be on _brain rest_?” 

Dick thinks for a second.

“Brain rest isn’t very resting when I keep dwelling on messed-up things.” 

“That’s fair,” Jason says. He moves to stand in front of him. “Everyone needs a distraction sometimes. Promise I won’t snitch unlike _some_ fucking people.” 

“... Has he told anyone else?” 

“No, because I smacked the shit out of him when he told me what he did. Then he said he wanted to tell Barbara since she’s ‘ _a_ _sensitive_ _female_ ’ and would know what to do, so I smacked him even harder. Little prick.” 

Jason's way of speaking is habitually hyperbolic, but still-- he's got to make sure.

" _Smacked_ him?"

"Relax," Jason says, "I'm not a child abuser. It was just basically a thump on the shoulder."

It’s funny, because he’d heard Jason in a paroxysm of rage yesterday, and it hadn’t been Damian he’d been screaming at. But he has moments of quiet fury, too, which in a certain way are worse. Maybe when Damian had told him, he’d gritted his teeth and hissed at him that it was wrong to listen to such an intimate conversation, and that it was an invasion of privacy, and that to tell anyone at all was outrageous, and all the other things Dick wanted to say, but would never, because Damian was just twelve, so desperate for his approval, so easy to shatter. 

"Anyway, I don't know where you picked up the idea that you're not allowed to tell me I'm being a fucking asshole, but _I'm_ telling _you_ that if I say anything stupid like that, ever again, you have full permission to crack me good across the goddamn face."

*Jason," he says, as if just saying his name will stop what seems to be a burgeoning tirade. 

"I'm serious," he continues. "I won't be mad. In fact I'll be mad if you _don't_ fucking hit me."

He’s breathing hard, his massive shoulders heaving. His eyes are sea-glass green and blown wide open. 

"You seem mad right now," Dick observes. 

Jason’s hands fly into the air and for the tiniest moment, Dick wonders if he should be concerned. But it's just his usual excess of anger, being taken out on empty space instead of a thug or a punching bag. 

" _God_ ," Jason says, gesticulating wildly, "you are something fuckin' else." 

"Should I be worried that you and Damian are hatching a plot to track Slade down and kill him?"

Jason stops long enough to unzip his jacket and throw it over the back of an armchair. A pack of cigarettes falls out of one pocket and lands on the floor. He doesn’t notice. 

"I told him that if he so much as thought about it, I'd break off his arm and beat him to death with it."

There's that hyperbole again.

"I'm sure he took that well."

A smile like a razor blade, and, “I think he got the message."

"... What about you?"

Jason tilts his jaw into his chest. 

"I'm not," he says. "I'm not, no matter how much I goddamn want to." 

“Thank you,” is all Dick has to say, and it makes Jason’s face twist. He stabs his index finger in Dick’s direction. 

"I’m doing it-- not doing it-- whatever the fuck, for your sake, not Bruce’s. I don't give a flying fuck what he thinks. But for you-- for you, I'll hold off." 

And that. That proves how far along he’s come. 

"I won't go out of my way to find him," Jason says, "but if he comes anywhere the _fuck_ near you ever again I will terminate him with extreme prejudice."

It’s more of a compromise than he’d expected Jason to make. He wants to tell Jason not to restrict himself on his account, that Dick’s opinion shouldn’t factor into what he does, but he’s thankful. So thankful. Slade is dangerous, and his brothers need to stay far away. Jason’s dangerous, too, that same streak of ruthlessness in his blood; in that regard, Dick trusts him to hold his own. But Tim? Damian? He’s overtaken by vertigo at the thought of it. 

“I haven’t seen him in years.”

“And I’m going to keep it that way,” Jason says, so seriously that it seems unnatural. “I swear I’m going to keep it that way.” 

Dick looks away, back to the TV. He clicks the remote aimlessly. They’ve long since foregone cable, but they have every subscription service known to mankind. 

Animal documentaries-- seen enough of those with Damian recently. Crime shows? Too close to his real life. Dramas? He doesn’t need any more emotional turmoil. 

“Stop,” Jason says. “Stop there.” 

“What?” 

“You fucking moron, that’s _Captain Ron_!” 

Dick looks more closely at the title he’d gone back to. Kurt Russell and Martin Short. Genre: comedy. Rotten Tomatoes score: 23%. Year: 1992. 

Jesus. It was older than both of them. 

“Haven’t you seen it?” 

“No,” Dick says, eyeing the title card. Kurt Russell is dressed slobbishly and wearing an eye patch, standing in front of a boat wheel. 

“Well scoot the fuck over,” Jason says, throwing himself down on the couch beside him. “That’s a classic.” 

“You’re going to stay?” 

Jason throws his arm over the back of the couch and stretches his legs out onto the ottoman in front of them. He’s still wearing his signature boots. Poor Alfred, and those poor hall runners.

“ _Someone_ has to make sure those two little shits don’t bother you, ‘cause you sure as hell won’t tell them to fuck off yourself.” 

He clicks on the movie, and they watch it in silence, and it’s the best he’s felt since this whole damn debacle started.

It’s polluted by the knowledge that it can’t last forever. 

* * *

“I need your help,” Tim says to him the next evening. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since Dick jumped out the window, but it’s not as awkward as he’d expected it to be. 

Dick’s in the library, halfway through _The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie_ by Agota Kristof. It’s a suffocatingly dismal story about twins and their sense of identity. He’s aware that he shouldn’t be reading such dark things while in his current state of mind, but somehow, seeing the world from the perspective of demented children is comforting. 

He guesses that means he’s demented, too. 

“With what?” he says, folding the corner of the page. He sets the book down face-first-- he doesn’t need Tim to comment on his choice of reading material. He’s lucky already that he hasn’t nagged him about his remaining day of brain rest. No reason to tempt him with something else. 

“Class.” 

“Since when have _you_ ever needed help in school?” 

“When it involves nothing academic,” Tim says, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. He hands it over, and Dick unfolds it.

“... What class is making you bake a pie?” 

Tim shuffles, turning back to the bookshelf as if it makes him invisible. “It’s a course about household things. Repairing clothing. Cooking, creating balanced meals, et cetera.” 

“Alfred made you take _home economics_?” 

“It’s called ‘domestic science’ these days,” Tim corrects, trying to sound dignified. “And he didn’t _make_ me. He just… strongly suggested it.” 

Dick keeps looking at him. Tim wilts.

“Alright, he said I was ‘disgracefully incapable’ of caring for myself, and gave me the choice of taking the class or learning from him. I chose class.”

“Smart decision,” Dick says. 

Alfred was a harsh teacher. Dick still shuddered every time he heard him on the old Singer machine. It reminded him of being ten years old, forced to sew pillowcase after pillowcase by hand in order to straighten his backstitch. After a couple of days of frustration, he’d asked why he couldn’t use the machine instead. Alfred had fixed him with an excoriating stare and inquired if his hands were broken.

“Yes,” Tim says, “but it means I can’t ask him for help, either.”

Dick looks down at the assignment instructions and ponders. This whole thing could have been fabricated in an attempt to make Dick feel more useful. Then again, Tim truly was useless in the kitchen, and even if he’d made it up, he might still learn something if they baked it together. 

“Then let’s go,” he says, getting up from the chair.

Being in the kitchen -- _Alfred’s_ kitchen-- is a daunting affair. He keeps it meticulously arranged, and every pot and pan and whisk and spatula are so expensive and task-specific that it can be overwhelming just to pick what to use. 

Nevertheless, they have a mission.

“I’ve already made and chilled the crust dough,” Tim says, “and chopped the apples, but every time I try to do the lattice on top it looks awful and the teacher fails me on presentation. This is my last chance before we move on from baking.” 

“You can’t force it,” Dick says. “It’s an art form, not a science.” 

“Yeah,” Tim says, “and I’m so great at that. We all know I’m the next Martha Stewart.” 

“Just watch me.”

Dick was good at baking, as a matter of fact. His mother had taught him when he’d still been at her apron strings. Everything she made had been delicious, but the pies had always been his favorite. It was amazing, really, because she’d only had a toaster oven at her disposal, but somehow each one she made had perfect crusts and the most flavorful filling. It didn’t matter what kind. Chicken pot pie, shepherd’s pie, sweet potato pie, and all the others had all been irresistible, and Dick and his father finished them off right after they cooled-- and sometimes before, to the detriment of their tongues.

With his help, the lattice on the two apple pies come out perfectly, and when they pull them out of the oven, he thinks that even his mother would have been impressed. And beyond the halcyon nature of childhood memories, Alfred would be, too.

They cool quickly enough, and Tim puts one in a pie keeper to take to school tomorrow. He pulls a tub of Alfred’s homemade vanilla ice cream and dollops it into a bowl, beside a slice of the second pie. They sit at the kitchen bar.

Tim’s taken a few bites when he says, “Aren’t you going to eat any?” 

“I’m not that hungry,” Dick says.

Had this all been a ploy to get him to eat something? Surely he wasn’t that manipulative...

“It’s really good,” Tim continues. “The ice cream brings it to perfection.” 

“Maybe later.” 

“I think it might be as good as Alfred’s. Are you sure you don’t want to try?” 

“Stop pressuring me to eat," he says, perhaps more sharply than he’d meant, and this time Tim doesn’t push the issue. Instead he abandons the pie, examines the counter-top, and says nothing.

Dick’s the eldest. He’s supposed to set a good example, yet here he is, getting angry at his little brother who’s simply trying to show him some care. He really is an awful person. 

“Listen,” Dick says, after the silence has become awkward, and Tim’s ice cream has started to melt. “I’m sorry I yelled at you when we talked. And I know I’ve been snippy recently. I’ve been… stressed, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.” 

Tim mashes his ice cream into the pie until it’s soaked through. “I was the one pushing boundaries,” he says.

Even the allusion to what they’d been discussing makes Dick want to squirm out of his chair and crawl under the bar. That wouldn’t be a good example, either, would it? Even Damian wouldn’t resort to such juvenility, and if he can’t set an example in the important things, such as not being a major malfunction, then he can at least keep good table manners.

Maybe he'll leave and go to Rose’s rooms. Tim won’t be able to follow him since he has to clean up the kitchen; none of them would dare to leave a mess for Alfred to find.

“This has been nice,” Dick says, “but I think I’m going to go upstairs.” 

He ignores the look on Tim’s face as he watches him go. 

* * *

He stops in his room on the way up, to change his face dressing and shower, and after he’s dried off and redressed he lies down on the bed for what feels like just a minute. When he opens his eyes again he sees that the door is cracked, and Damian is watching him. 

“Richard,” he says. He’s half in the doorway, one hand peeking tentatively in, and his voice is quiet. 

Dick sits up. He can’t send Damian away. That’s not their dynamic. Damian has no one else to reach out to, no one who’ll listen to his worries. Certainly not Tim or Jason, and he doesn’t see Alfred as a confidante. Bruce would listen to him, but he doesn’t have that sort of relationship with his father. 

So it falls to Dick. He doesn’t mind. 

“Hey, Dami. Come in.” 

Damian sits down in the desk chair Tim had occupied a few days before, but he doesn’t pull it closer. He retrieves a length of yarn out of his pocket and begins playing cat’s cradle.

“I have realized that it was invasive of me to listen to your appointment with Thompkins,” he says. “I wish you to know that I shall not do so again.” 

He thinks of what Jason told him the other day. 

“Who else did you tell?” 

“Todd… _impressed_ … upon me that I was not to share my discovery with anyone else.” 

His discovery, as if Dick’s past were a hidden temple deep in the jungle, found by explorers hundreds of years after the demise of its parent civilization. Damian’s a _child_ , he tells himself. He’s not really aware of what he’s saying.

“So did you tell anyone else or not?” 

“ _No_ ,” Damian says. “I swear it to you.” 

He breathes deeply. He can manage this conversation. It won’t be long; it’s almost time for Damian to go to sleep. If he stays up too late, he’s forbidden from patrol on the weekends, so unlike most children, he adheres to his bedtime with near-military discipline. 

Empathy. 

He has to practice what he preaches. 

“You seem like something’s bothering you, Dami.” 

“I do not desire to burden you,” he says.

“You are _never_ a burden.” 

Damian clicks his tongue and keeps playing cat’s cradle. Dick waits. At last, the boy speaks.

“I have been reminiscing upon the past.” 

_Me too_ , Dick wants to say.

He doesn’t. 

“When I was very young, I asked Mother often about my origins.” 

Damian is _still_ very young, so young that he believes he isn’t. Dick was like that once. 

“At first she told me that I had sprung forth from her forehead fully formed, as Athena did from Zeus.” 

That sounds like Talia. Megalomaniacal delusions and arrogance to the core, just like her father. 

“Of course I knew better,” Damian says haughtily, “but for a time I allowed her to have her jest. When I reached the age of six, however, I demanded that she tell me the truth.” 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

This is serious. 

“What did she say?” Dick says, modulating his voice. He can’t give anything away.

“She informed me that Father had fallen to her upon the battlefield, and that therefore she rightfully took what was her due.” 

He feels suddenly nauseated. 

“Her due?”

Damian looks down. 

“I believe that she was referring to me.”

And Dick knows this. He already does. But Damian doesn’t _know_ that he knows. This is a big deal for him to be sharing, and Dick’s got to keep his cool. Reacting badly will upset Damian even more than he already is. 

“I have long been aware that Father did not wish for my conception,” Damian continues.

How is he supposed to respond to that? It’s true; Damian was the result of rape and Bruce had been absolutely horrified when he’d found out that he had a son. Saying otherwise would be an outright lie, and disrespectful to them all. 

“He wants you now,” Dick says. It’s all he can do, and it’s a meager scrap of comfort. “He wants you so much that he’s fought a literal league of assassins to keep you.” 

“And what of you, Richard? Did you?” 

He’s still playing cat’s cradle, his anxious fingers darting in and out of the string. 

“You mean, did I want you when I was Batman?” 

He nods. 

“Yes,” Dick says. He means it, and he hopes that shows in his expression. “ _God_ , yes. You’re my littlest brother, and I love you so damn much.” 

Damian fidgets.

“What if I had been-- a result of what happened to you.” 

Dick ducks his head, tries to meet Damian’s eyes. 

Slade. That was the only… person… he and Leslie had discussed in any sort of detail. Damian would have been able to identify him easily enough. But the sort of thing Damian had just asked about couldn’t have happened with Slade. It was a biological impossibility. As for the others-- well, he hadn’t said anything about them, except alluding to their existence. 

“... How did you know that was even a possibility.” 

The boy seems to shrink, and his hands are pulling the string so tightly it’s begun digging into his skin.

“Drake,” he says finally.

Tim. Of course. 

Dick tries to swallow down the indignation that’s welled up in the back of his throat. So that’s how it is-- everyone discussing it behind his back, as if it were the tantalizing plot of some soap opera. He almost wishes he didn’t know, but it’s useful. Now he has more of an excuse to hide away from them all. 

But Damian is a _child_ , and he’s vulnerable, and Dick remembers being a child too, so small and helpless, a robin fledgling in an empty nest as a predator approaches, beating pitiful wings in an attempt to escape what is soon to come. 

He’ll give anything so that Damian doesn’t feel that way, too, even if that means pulling out his heart and letting him feed on it. 

“Alright,” he says, exhaling slowly. “Alright. I can’t say I’m happy that that’s something he discussed with you.” 

“I apologize if the question was inappropriate,” Damian says stiffly, and he’s on the edge of the chair now, looking as if he’s about to leave. 

“Damian,” he says, “stay. I’m not mad. It’s just… a lot.” 

He had considered it, both times it had happened. What would happen _if_. Kori was incapable of it, so he hadn’t been worried, but when Mirage revealed the ruse--

He hadn’t been able to force himself to have that conversation with her. 

And Tarantula.

Well. 

She was dead, and he’d been around her long enough after it happened to be sure it wasn’t an issue. 

And whenever it fell to him to seduce women, he’d avoided any activity that could result in… that. It’s a thought that horrifies him. Some child out there, with his blue eyes and black hair, never knowing a father and being raised in far from the best of circumstances-- that child hardening themselves against the cruel environment into which they’d been born, and wondering if anyone out there ever truly cared. 

Dick looks at Damian, who’s watching him. He doesn’t have to think about the answer. Not anymore. 

“Come here,” Dick says.

Damian obeys by reflex, getting up from the chair, but then hesitates and stops again, like a doll on a ratcheting string. Indecision swarms the air around him. 

“I said come,” Dick repeats, patting the bed beside him. “Get up here.” 

Damian gives him one last look --cautious, assessing-- and crawls up to sit beside him, leaning his back against the headboard. 

“Richard?” he says.

He’s so fucking young. He’s so fucking _young_ and he doesn’t deserve this. Any of this. 

“Damian,” he says. “I chose you. _You_. You’ll always be my Robin.” 

Damian swallows. This close, the sound is audible. 

“And I can’t speak for Bruce,” Dick says, “but if you-- if you were mine, I’d love you just as much as I do now.” 

The smile Damian gives him, so shy and disbelieving, makes every word more true.

* * *

Such a long time spent _wanting_ to escape Slade, to hear him beg, to keep him from hurting anyone again, but when they leave the compound and go trotting out into the waiting car, handcuffs joining them at the wrist, there’s nothing but _outside_. Outside air, outside animals, outside things, all that he’s gazed at from the hideout windows and waited for, desperately waited for-- oh, days and days, so long he can’t think of it in contiguous and continuous form. Instead there’s disjointed memories, titled up like gaudy movies and just as cheap: When He Was Captured; When He Almost Got Away; When He Realized It Was Hopeless; and finally When He Got _Outside_.

He realizes it as they drive and drive and get closer to Gotham, and it’s like waking up while on a shipwreck. 

There’s nothing but _outside_ and _him_. Slade. One must be accompanied by the other. An inseparable set. Before they drive through a tunnel and he can’t see anything at all, he glances at Slade, and the man speaks.

“I trust that you won’t cause trouble,” he says. “You’re my student, after all.”

And Dick is.

His student. 

If it feels like this, the _outside_ , then anything. Yes.

And that. That’s a problem. A big problem. He’s excited to be in a car with the man who’s been teaching him to kill, and said car is currently on its way to a planned hit.

He can’t think of much besides that, and they arrive in Gotham after what seems to be only an hour of silence. 

It’s just Slade and the driver. He can do this. He has the opportunity, and the motive, and the means are right here with him.

It makes sense to _him_ , anyway. 

But then-- they arrive at the location. The building is bigger than he’d thought. Slade had specified four stories, and it is, but it must be seventy feet high. It’s tiny by Gotham standards, yet it’s tall enough to make him hesitate. More than hesitate.

They make their way to the roof and he reassesses the situation. It’s probably only sixty feet. That’s doable. Difficult, very difficult, but doable. 

Slade is focused. He’s unpacking the rifle, the Blaser R93, from its case. Then he’s screwing the barrel on.

The rooftop breeze rustles his hair.

Four of Slade’s ‘employees’ are on the roof with them. They’d followed in a separate car; he’d been naive to think that he’d be brought out accompanied only by one other person. 

They wait. The spotter tells Slade the wind speed and its direction. 

It’s going to be soon. 

He thinks of his parents, and how they must have felt in their final few seconds: the sudden horror as the ropes gave way, the feeling of empty hands as they clutched uselessly at the air, and the knowledge of the ground fast approaching.

They hadn’t chosen it. They’d wanted to live. _Oh_ , how they’d wanted to live. He’d stood atop the trapeze and watched them as they fell. Their faces are indelibly marked in his memory, and what he remembers most poignantly is the relief in their eyes as they saw that he was safe above them.

Trapped between two darknesses, it’s the penultimate pain and the ultimate nobility to choose neither.

Dick jumps. 

* * *

Dick scheduled his one-week followup with Leslie during the school day. He sweeps the exam room for bugs before she arrives. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but then, it isn’t truly paranoia if there’s a significant risk of it happening. With Damian, one could never be too sure. 

Supposedly Bruce, Jason, _and_ Tim had all spoken to him about it. Bruce in particular said that Damian had been “thoroughly reprimanded”, and that he wouldn’t do it again, but he didn’t know him the way Dick did. Damian rebelled against restrictions as a matter of principle, and often disobeyed not out of true desire, but out of indignance at having been told what to do. Dick's found ways around it, such as giving him a series of acceptable choices instead of a single ultimatum, but Bruce’s communication style isn’t negotiable. Then there’s Jason, who thinks that threats are a perfectly good form of constructive dialogue, and Tim, whose ability to read emotions is… lacking. 

He doesn’t have the greatest faith in Damian’s resolve. 

“It’s healing well,” Leslie says, after she examines his face. “The dressings can come off. The tissue has granulated and your new collagen production is ahead of schedule.” 

“Wonderful,” he says. Somehow it doesn’t feel like it. The side of his face is a little splotchy, but nothing like it had been. “I guess I should tell you that I’ve messed up my foot.”

The cuts are all scabbed over by now, so she ignores them. Instead they do x-rays of both feet, not just the one that hurts. She hangs up the film and examines it for a minute, then circles a couple of points on the first and second metatarsals. 

“You have two stress fractures in your left foot.” 

“I figured,” Dick says. He’s had them before. Feet are fragile things, all those delicate little bones, and he’s never been gentle to them. 

“I’m not going to ask how you got them,” she says, “but I am going to insist that the next time you decide to go through what was obviously treacherous terrain, you wear appropriate footwear.”

“Sure,” he says. She pats his shoulder, as if she knows it’s a promise he can’t make. 

“Well, you have the opportunity to rest this one out. Give it a few weeks to calcify.” 

“You’re not going to scold me for waiting till now to mention it?”

She quirks the corner of her mouth. “Would you have done anything different even if you had seen me when it happened?” 

“No,” he admits, “but if you’d asked me to wear a walking boot I’d have pretended for you.” 

“You and the rest of your family,” she says, shaking her head. “When you get older, you might regret having put your body through the wringer like this.”

“I’ve thought about it,” he replies, and it’s true. He has thought about it, just not in the way she’s suggesting. Her statement is funny on two levels of assumption. 

First: that he’s going to get old enough to care about things like bad joints and arthritis. 

Second: that he doesn’t already regret everything he’s done with his body to begin with.

* * *

They drug him after Slade swoops down to catch him. Lying on the rooftop, staring up at the sky, he’s still lucid enough to realize that this-- this must really be it. He hears two gunshots, and then a pair of thugs carry him down the stairs and into the car. 

Once they arrive back at the compound, they throw him into Slade’s room and cuff him to the bed. He tugs at it like an animal caught in a trap, and he only feels the pain once his wrist has become bloody. 

He stops when Slade enters the room. 

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that, despite your disruption, the job went perfectly.” 

He says nothing. 

“Were you trying to kill yourself, or did you think you’d be able to escape?”

As if there’s a difference anymore.

“Either way,” he says, unbuckling his belt, “it was the wrong choice.”

What happens next--

It’s bad. Far worse than it’s ever been before. He’d thought there couldn’t be more, that it couldn’t possibly be more painful, that Slade had already done to him everything he ever would. 

He’d been so wrong. 

All the times Slade’s performed this act-- this crime, this filthiness-- he’s tried to stay quiet. It’s his last refuge of dignity. Slade can pin him down and invade his body and use him as a toy, and Dick can’t do anything about that, but he can control his voice. He’s never begged or cried or wept. 

Until now.

It doesn’t matter what he has to do to stop this. It has to end. He can’t take it. Slade’s hands, grabbing in places that should never be touched, twisting and pinching and making it _hurt_. His mouth, drawing blood as it bites its way down his body. 

So he begins to plead. When he says ‘please’ for the first time, Slade chuckles into his ear, warm breath somehow making Dick shiver.

“You should have thought of this,” he says, “before you made the decision to jump.”

And it goes on for what seems like forever. It’s never lasted this long. There’s no clock in this room, but he knows it. Slade’s body smothers him, and the heat and the sweat feel like a crucible. 

“Please,” he says again. His voice comes out so low, so pathetic, and he hates himself for it. “Stop it, _please_.” 

Slade stops moving. Relief rocks through Dick’s body. Had he-- had he _listened_? Was that all it took, begging? Begging to feed his ego, to make him feel like he was in control? 

“You want it to stop?” Slade says, and he sounds for all the world as if he’s considering it. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Dick says, and he can imagine it: it’ll be so easy, from now on, so much quicker. All he has to do is grovel like a miserably writhing worm. He can do that, if it’ll hurt less. His pride is already almost dead. It’s okay. 

The idea of it soothes him, and for a moment it’s almost as if he’s not here, being held down by this massive evil man. He feels like he’s far, far away, in a land of comfort and kindness. 

Then.

Then Slade’s hands are around his neck. They’re so large that the fingers overlap. 

Dick can’t breathe. He really can’t breathe. Slade is going for an air choke. He’s seen it in so many crime scenes before. Cut off the oxygenated blood supply, they’re unconscious in seconds, but deprive them of air-- it takes several minutes, and they leave such horrific corpses behind, tongues blue and bulging. 

Slade’s face reveals nothing, and he doesn’t seem to be exerting himself at all as he holds Dick down, presses him into the mattress. And then he begins moving again. Dick had forgotten it, with the shock of strangulation, but now he remembers. Slade is still doing it. To him. 

He’s-- he’s still hard. 

How can he be _aroused_ right now? 

“Do you,” he says, “want to live?” 

Dick passes out. 

* * *

Bruce is in the Cave, where he’s been spending most of his time recently. Dick would ask why-- ask if there were some new, pressing case he hadn’t been told about-- but he knows it’s all about retreat. The Cave is the one place where Bruce gets to be wholly himself, and it’s even better when it’s empty-- the kids are at school, and Jason’s gone, and Alfred’s occupied with other things.

He feels a little guilty for interrupting. 

“You need to talk to him,” Dick says.

“Talk to whom?” 

“Damian,” he says, leaning against the railing that surrounds the dinosaur. "I was talking to him a few days ago, and he mentioned some things."

"Things?"

"About how he was conceived. And how you feel about that, and him."

Bruce turns back to the computer, clicking away some files and shutting it down. Once the screen goes black, he turns around. 

“... It’s a difficult subject,” he says. 

Dick remembers Damian’s lost face and searching eyes, and when he speaks it's sharper than he’d meant. 

“ _Everything_ in our family is a difficult subject,” Dick snaps. “That doesn’t mean we get to ignore problems when they come up.”

Bruce has never been an overly expressive man, and his lifted eyebrow or slight smile are the equivalent of miles of emotion in other people. Right now, his face is carefully composed but there’s a hint of tightness at the corners of his mouth.

He’s upset.

He’s upset, and Dick is both an asshole and a hypocrite.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean that. You’re right. It’s hard to talk about.”

He knows that all too well. What gives him the right to lecture Bruce, who actually has to deal with _consequences_ from what happened to him?

“I didn’t know he felt that way. It looks like I’ve been oblivious to a lot of things."

Dick feels even worse. 

“I may be his biological parent,” he continues, “but I wasn’t here when he needed me. You were, and you’re better with him. He loves you, he truly does.”

“Bruce, that’s not--”

“I know what I have and haven’t done.”

“He loves you too,” Dick manages. It feels so wrong, lying to Bruce about this-- worse, somehow, than every omission he’s ever made about the past. 

“Maybe,” Bruce says, “but he’ll always love you best.” 

“He’s just afraid that you resent him for what Talia did.” 

"She used me like a stud horse," Bruce says, and then, with bitter humor, "I should have charged a fee."

"Hey," Dick says, "you don't have to joke about it with me. I understand. What she did to you isn't funny."

"No," Bruce replies, eyes like searchlights in the fog as they stare at him. "No, it's really not." 

* * *

The next night Jason comes to retrieve him from his room. It’s strange-- he’s been over at the Manor more frequently in the past couple of weeks than he has been in the entire year previous. 

“We’re going out,” Jason says. “As civilians.” 

He’s still wearing those damn boots. 

“I don’t feel up to it tonight.”

"Funny," Jason says. "I don't recall asking for your opinion. Now get the hell up. We're going."

Jason waits for him to dress, then sets off down the hall. He follows, walking slowly for the sake of his feet, and they come to the garage. Jason leads him to the area closest to the garage door, where they park their daily drivers. Then they stop, and Dick finds himself lost for words. 

“This is…” 

He knows his way around vehicles for the most part, but he can't identify this. It's an old muscle car, that’s obvious enough, but he’s almost positive that this isn’t one of Bruce’s semi-frequent acquisitions. It’s not exactly… _his style_ , to put it mildly. It’s lime green and has black racing stripes. The vents on the hood remind him of a snake’s nostrils. 

“This is a 1970 Oldsmobile 442,” Jason says, as if he knows about Dick’s confusion, yet also expects that to mean something to him. “With the W-30 package.” 

“Right.” 

“I bought her the other week. Well, _won_ her, really, but same difference.” 

“Won her,” Dick repeats. 

“Yeah, this guy at El Club De Los Cabrones didn’t know when to quit.”

“Won her at a _strip club_.”

“I’ve named her Carlita,” Jason says, sounding inordinately proud. “Now get in, loser. We’re going cruising.” 

Dick stiffens and doesn’t open the door.

Jason gives him an exasperated look. “Not _that_ kind of cruising. Jesus, get your mind _outta_ the gutter and get your _ass_ in the _car_.” 

“Does it… function?”

“ _Does it function_ ,” he snarls. “I’ll _function_ you if you don’t get in the goddamn vehicle.” 

Dick obliges. The door’s heavy and feels like solid steel. He slides into the passenger seat and examines the simple two-point seat belt. It has a faded white label stitched onto one side. 

“This says it’s from 1970,” he states, squinting at the ink. It’s hard to read in the dim light.

“Gotta die sometime,” Jason says, doing up his own seatbelt. “I’ve done it once, s’not so bad.” 

It’s wrong, and inappropriate, but Dick laughs. Jason does too, after a minute, and then the car is cranked and put into gear. It’s obscenely loud in the way that only muscle cars can be, but even over the engine’s noise he can hear himself sounding _happy_. They go out of the garage still laughing, and the headlights light up the drive as they coast down the hill. 

“Look behind the seat,” Jason says, and he obeys. 

“You brought an entire fifth of whiskey?”

“Bruce’s. I figured he fucking owes you one.”

“You have to drive, and I don’t even drink.” 

That’s not precisely true; he’ll have a glass of chardonnay at receptions and galas, and if he has steak night with Bruce, they sometimes share a bottle of Barolo Riserva. But that’s not frequent, and this-- this is full proof whiskey. 

“Well, tonight you do. I don’t know what the fuck else this family has tried to get you out of your funk, but it’s clearly not working.”

“Open container law,” Dick says. “We could get pulled over.” 

In the flash of headlights reflected by the trees, he sees Jason roll his eyes. 

“Then keep it the fuck _closed_ when you’re not _drinking_ it.” He turns on the radio, which is much more modern than the vehicle itself. It’s loud, louder the engine at this range. 

“... Is this _Dokken_?” 

“Yeah!” Jason yells, then turns the volume dial further up. “He put in a really bitchin’ sound system!” 

They drive away from the city. Dick’s not terribly familiar with the backroads, even though he’s spent most of his life here. It’s almost relaxing, to let Jason take him somewhere unknown. 

He sips on the whiskey. It’s not terrible, and he’s worked up a decent buzz when Jason turns the music down and glances at Dick.

“Have you seen my fuckin’ cigarettes?” 

“I don’t--” he almost says he doesn’t know, which is true, but then, “I don’t _like_ it when you smoke.” 

“I know,” Jason says. “I’ll roll the windows down.” 

“No, I mean, _I don’t like it_.” 

“Huh?” 

And god damn him for a fool but the words tumble out of his mouth like weighted dice. 

“Slade smoked. When I was-- when I was with him.” 

Jason turns the music down completely. They’re left with the rumbling of the engine. He’s going to get mad, Dick realizes. Here he is in _Jason’s_ car, going somewhere _Jason_ had insisted on, and yet he’s bitching about something this insignificant. 

“Alright,” Jason says. 

“What?” 

“I said, _alright_. I shoulda figured.” He throws his lighter into the backseat. “I won’t smoke around you anymore.” 

Dick drinks some more. The whiskey starts to taste better.

After a while longer, they turn off onto a gravel road, shadowed on both sides by trees. A few deer dart out of the way, and Jason says darkly, “None of these fuckers better jump out in front of us; I don’t want any fuckin’ dents.” 

Dick doesn’t want any fuckin’ deaths. Even the deer have families. 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Jason says, “but _I_ have a new car. I don’t give a fuck about Bambi.” 

The bottle is getting lighter. 

Jason cuts the engine, and when he looks around in bewilderment, he realizes that they’ve driven into a meadow. He fumbles with his seat belt, and then they get out. Dick brings the liquor with him. 

“It’s pretty,” Dick says, and it’s a relief to be hearing it about something other than himself, even if he’s the one saying it. And he’s not lying. The stars are bright and the spiral arms of the Milky Way stretch from one side of the sky to the other. Ursa Major and Minor. Arcturus and Regulus and Spica. 

“I used to come here,” Jason says, “right when I first got back to Gotham. You know, when I was even _more_ fucked in the head than I am now.” 

Jason’s sharing this with him. His own place of reclusion. He thinks of Rose, and the rooms he treasures, and wonders if he’ll ever have the bravery to share them with anyone. Probably not. 

A blanket is spread out on the ground, flattening the grass. 

“I brought this for _you_ ,” Jason tells him as they settle down. “I know you’re allergic to grass, you pansy. You better be grateful.” 

He is. Not just for this, but to everyone, for dealing with this -- _him_ \-- as if it’s not an inconvenience. And for this sky. This endless sky. What he’d hoped for, longed for, struggled for. This wonderful air that sharpens the night and rings the moon with a halo. It’s so beautiful.

All his life, he’d taken it for granted, and then it got torn away.

He’s never gotten it back. Even if he were to try now, it’s something that can never be regained. It’s a raw and bleeding wound beating against his ribcage. But that’s all that he's known. Losing things. Loving what can’t be protected and trying foolishly, again and again, to climb his way out of that deep well. Even when he’d been shrieking, sobbing, shuddering, clawing at his face and arms in horror, a corner of his mind found the utter fucking nerve to _hope_. 

Jason gets up and grabs something from the car. A bottle of water. 

So responsible. 

He doesn’t lie back down. 

“Are you okay?” 

His voice is a faraway tune carried in by the crisp spring wind, disseminated and distorted by the long distance it seemed to have traveled between them. Dick has to put his words through a special filter to understand what he’s implying, what he’s asking. 

“Of course I am,” he says, lurching upright. “Why would you think I wasn’t? I’m fucking _fine_. I’m not some-- Jesus Christ, Jason, how can you even…” He chokes up and trails away-- too goddamn much too goddamn quick, and fuck, he needs to get a hold of himself.

Just-- it’s… it’s so hard.

“You’re right. You seem perfectly fine.” 

He can’t even tell if Jason’s being sarcastic. Why is his family so damn ambiguous? They should just say what they really think and everyone could get back onto their normal patterns of life. But no. When faced with the prospect of admitting inconvenient truths, they lie instead, because it’s easier for them. No one wants to admit that they’re related to a screw-up and a total fucking catastrophe and someone who only got where he is because of his body. 

The meadow is silent as death, and the only reason he knows that Jason’s still there is the shadow he throws across the grass. He doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to see his thoughts bared across his face. 

It's never been just Slade, or Mirage, or Tarantula. Even disregarding them, he’s forever known that he was desirable. People tell him constantly. Sometimes it isn’t in the nicest ways but since childhood he’s known that he was-- you know, that he was… appealing. And when it came time to prove that he was the prettiest and the best and that he could do all the things that others wanted... well, he’d passed that test with flying colors, hadn’t he? Blew it clean out of the water. Blew other things, too, but that’s-- that’s--

He stands up. He trembles everywhere, like an old racehorse ran too hard. 

“Hey Jason,” he says, voice shaking like all the rest of him, “don’t you think I’m pretty? Objectively speaking.” 

He’s always been the shorter one, and he has a nice vantage point when Jason opens his mouth, shuts it, and opens it again. He waits for what he thinks is a pretty patient length of time, but it seems like he just isn’t going to respond. And that, that’s what really tips him over the edge.

“It’s okay if you don’t know,” Dick says. “I’ll prove it to you.” 

Then he does the thing that he’s best at. He grabs Jason’s coat with both hands and latches onto his mouth. He tastes like life and health and sanity and other stuff Dick will never have. His arms, his chest, his back-- solid and _there_ , tangible, not just a smoky figure sitting at a bar or on a soiled bed in some shady motel. But then, just as quickly as he’d moved forward, Jason goes back and to the side, putting the front of the car between them like it’s an impassable barrier.

“Goddammit, Dick,” he says, and Dick’s swimmy gaze hones back in on his face, the sharply drawn eyebrows, the frown which on his features is so well-accustomed. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“I already told you I’m fine--” 

“Then why,” Jason says, loudly enough to crush whatever he’d been saying, “are you crying?”

He shuts his mouth like he’s been slapped and feels as if for the first time the wetness smeared around his eyes, clumping his lashes together and blurring the stars into insignificant specks. He reaches up to wipe it away, but more wells up, and he can’t stop it. It’s fucking pathetic.

He is. 

“Hey. _Hey_. _Hey_!” 

Jason’s fist is pounding against the hood of the car. The noise jerks him back to the present. 

“You are _fucked up_ ,” he says. “How much did you have to drink?”

“Yes,” Dick replies. 

Jason retrieves the bottle from the ground. It’s over half empty. 

“Okay,” he says, sounding calmer than he should be, “you’ve had a lot. Let’s sit you back down.” 

He’s not sure if he can do that without falling flat on his face. Jason must know he can’t, because he comes over and helps him to sit. Then he shoves a water bottle in his face. 

“I don’t want to,” he says. 

“But you have to,” Jason replies.

Dick shudders. He's heard that phrase too much. Two moments, past and present, phase together and then pull apart. 

“I’m not letting you die of alcohol poisoning on my watch,” he continues, and says something else, but Dick misses it, because suddenly he’s vomiting so hard that it’s making him cry harder than he already was.

At least he avoids the blanket. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he’s done. It seems like he’s said it a lot recently. “I’m sorry.” 

Beside him, Jason scuffs the ground with his boot. Those _fucking_ boots; they’re the scenery of his life these days. 

“It’s okay. I mean, you’re a dumb fuck for drinking so much, and I figured you’d know better, but it’s okay.” 

“... I really _don’t_ know better.” 

“Can’t fool me,” he says lightly. “Now, do you think you’re gonna hurl any more?” 

He can’t make any promises.

Jason rolls the passenger window down. It’s funny, watching him work the crank. Then he puts Dick back into the seat, tucking the blanket over his lap. 

“If you have to, I want it out the window. None of that ‘puking in the car’ shit.” 

Maybe he responds, maybe he doesn’t. The world has started to turn without him. The engine roars.

“You should just leave me on the side of the road,” he says, and it makes all the sense in the world to him. “Maybe someone’ll hit me like a deer. Put me out of my misery. I hope I won’t leave a dent.” 

Jason’s voice is angry all at once, as if the prior lenience has gone in the dark. “That is a fucking _stupid_ thing to say and I’m choosing to ignore it because you’re absolutely wasted.” 

Time passes. He closes his eyes and concentrates on not ruining the interior of this car Jason seems to prize so much.

He wishes someone cared about him that way.

He comes to conscious thought again in the garage. Jason’s hands are under his armpits. He’s dragging him out of the car. His feet barely touch the ground, and his chin is resting on Jason’s shoulder.

He sees Damian before Jason does. 

Dick wants to say hi to his littlest brother. He does. He’s just afraid that if he opens his mouth, he’ll vomit again, and Jason is already angry. 

“Todd, what on _Earth_ are you doing? Richard, why is he--” 

"Now is not the time," Jason says. Dick knows him well enough to hear the implicit warning, but Damian doesn't.

"What's going on? Why is he _... inebriated_?"

“Damian,” Jason says, voice edging into danger, “I swear to God, if you say another fucking word, I will break your face.” 

“But--” 

“I’m not going to say it again,” and even Dick is intimidated by the tone.

“Hey,” he says, after Damian has gone, “he’s just a kid.” 

“Bullshit. None of us have ever been _just_ kids.” 

And it’s sad that that’s probably the truth. 

* * *

The boy wakes up somewhere wrong, a place many inches to the left of life. The same bed, same room, same compound. The man lies next to him, on top of the sheets that smother him so, and the boy is as still as any cadaver. For a miserable few seconds he tries to return to sleep, but the throb of his wrenched arm inspires him to straighten up, flex his back until most of the pressure is taken off his wrist. 

Even as light as he is (he’s _become_ ), his motion rocks the bed. Having realized he’s awake, the man turns over to face him, says that today they’re going to celebrate a victory-- “Your introduction to our society.” His eyes say more than his words ever could, and meeting his gaze is like staring into the black abyss. 

“I don’t want to,” the boy begins. A long time ago (was it?) people had respected that phrase, but of those events before these he cannot piece together more than vague snarls of scenery and voices. 

The man reaches out and places one hand on the boy’s chest, just above his heart. Thud-thud-thud, it goes, outpacing the beat of the hand atop it, and distracted by their temporary joining his thoughts unravel and fall away. 

“But you have to,” the man completes. It doesn’t sound right to him. Nothing that comes out of his mouth does. Dejá vù, they call it. Everything he says has been said before or will be said again, only it’s every day it’s different, just by a little, just by enough to _count_. 

His arm drops limp to the mattress when it’s uncuffed; the blood’s slow in coming. Sometimes at night, swallowed deep by the quiet and the heat, he wonders if his hand will become irretrievably damaged by this sort of treatment-- if it’ll blacken up and die. How would the man restrain him then? A collar, probably. He’s property, _his_ property. 

At the man’s prodding insistence he gets out of bed, feet plodding flat on the floor. Getting dressed never happens without him now, as if he’s a child who needs help with belts and laces. His fingers aren’t clumsy so much as wandering; often it’s just so hard to remember which button lines up with which hole, and he ends up as a scarecrow pastiché. 

“You’re getting thin,” the man says. His hands know the topography of the boy’s ribs, pelvis, sternum-- each small deviation of bone. 

Happiness can make you forget to eat, the boy reminds him.  
  
And it’s true. He is happy, burning with exultant fury. It would be impossible for the man to understand, for anyone to understand. Inside him is an orb that burns sickly white; it eats all that it touches and rebuilds it with bright bright light.

Sometimes introspection is like staring into the blind hatred of the sun. 

* * *

Dick crawls out of bed the next morning and barely makes his way to the bathroom sink before he vomits with great enthusiasm. 

This is the hangover to end all hangovers. He hasn’t felt this way since the morning after his 18th birthday, and _that_ had been entirely Roy Harper’s fault.

What the hell had he done last night? 

He hops in the shower and sits on the tub floor as the water rains down on him. Every muscle hurts. Fucking dehydration. This is a misery that can only come from hard liquor.

It looks like a glorious day outside, and so goddamn _bright_. He pulls the shades shut, shrinking back from the residual light as if he’s a cavefish abruptly exposed to a diver’s headlamp. Then he stumbles back towards the bed. On his way there he looks at the bedside table, and the gift basket that’s still untouched.

Beside it there’s a bottle of Gatorade, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, and a note in Jason’s sharp, left-slanted handwriting. 

_Hey Dickface,_

_I don’t know how much you remember about last night, but if you want to talk, give me a call. Otherwise I won’t mention it._

_P.S.: you are no longer allowed to drink anything stronger than a wine cooler, you lily-livered fuck._

It’s a stereotype of the morning after drunken nights out: trying to remember what happened, then tallying up the list of friends you have to apologize to for puking, or getting overly emotional, or embarrassing them in public. Practically a rite of passage. He’s done it before. It’s just been a long time. 

He recalls Jason dragging him out of his room and to the ridiculous car. The fifth of whiskey. The ride in the dark. That’s where things get fuzzy, and eventually go blank. 

God only knew what he’d done or said to warrant that note. But he’ll call Jason later. Right now he needs to lie down with a cold rag over his eyes. 

As he’s uncapping the Gatorade, his phone rings. Tim’s face shows on the caller ID. He considers for a moment, then swipes away the call. If he’s too hungover to talk to Jason, he’s _definitely_ too hungover to talk to Tim. 

Setting good examples. 

He can always pretend. 

Tim re-calls almost immediately. The ringtone splits his ears. He swipes it away again. It’s a school-day morning; why is Tim even calling? 

He takes the ibuprofen and lies back down, leaving the covers off. 

It rings. Fucking. Again. 

He reaches out for it and, in trying to silence it, accidentally answers.

“Fucking _what_ ,” he says flatly. 

There goes that good example, straight down the drain. Then all his annoyance blanches away as Tim says, “Have you seen Damian?” 

He doesn’t know what to say.

“Dick, this is _important_. Do you know where he is?” 

“No,” he says, voice hoarse from the dehydration. “No, I just woke up.” 

“If you don’t know, then no one does.” 

“He’s at school.” 

“He’s _not_ ,” Tim bites back. “I’m interning at WE this morning, and his homeroom teacher just called to ask Bruce where he is, and neither of us _fucking_ know. Neither does Alfred.” 

“... Jason?” 

“Hasn’t seen him either.” 

Panicking will also be a bad example, but all at once it hits him. Memories of hands on his arms, a needle into his bicep. Falling down into the shadows and coming back to the world in a place of harm. 

“He’s been taken,” he says, as calmly as he can, and then he can’t help it. He’s hyperventilating. "Or he's run off and gotten into trouble."

There’s no reply from the other end of the line. He hears the dinging of an elevator. It’s the sound made by the executive one in Wayne Tower. Bruce’s muffled voice accompanies it. 

“Listen,” Tim says eventually, “Alfred’s already done it, but search the manor yourself. Bruce and I are leaving now. Alfred’s looking out on the grounds. Take your phone with you and _answer_ it if it rings.”

He’s still clutching it to his ear when the dial tone sounds, and as he gets up, it seems that the world comes down. 

He’d concentrated so deeply on picking his way around the minefields in his life that he hadn't noticed the hands that crept in to steal what he held dear.

He has not loved enough-- he has not protected, he has not sheltered, he has not considered. 

Understanding is always a wound too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments from last fic really inspired me to work on this 'verse hard every day and get it out quickly, so if you'd be kind enough to let me know your thoughts about this, I'd appreciate it so much.


	2. Hanging Round The Ceiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian's gone, and with it Dick's last dregs of stability. Left on the sidelines while the others in the family look for his littlest brother, Dick struggles even harder to cope.

Three days after the rooftop incident, Slade brings a dog back to the hideout. It’s a stray, scruffy and malnourished, and has wiry gray hair and long whiskers. It’s probably a terrier mix. It walks on a leash, wagging its tail, and Dick wonders from whom it escaped.

“I brought you a learning experience,” Slade says. “Animals can be very instructive.”

He unloops the leash from around its neck. It runs over to Dick, tail still swinging back and forth, then stands up onto its hind legs to paw at his thigh. 

Dick doesn’t pet it. He doesn’t even want to look at it.

“What is it doing here?” 

And it’s stupid to ask because he already knows. Slade hasn’t said anything and he _knows_. The dog snuffs his leg with its nose, then drops back down and runs to sniff around the room. 

“You know how to do it,” Slade says, and removes a pistol from one of his secondary holsters. He drops the magazine and gives it to Dick. 

He considers.

Dogs get hit by cars all the time. Die of disease. He’s seen those documentaries about third-world countries, where dogs and cats run everywhere, unattended and uncared for. And in some countries, they even eat them. 

Slade whistles for the dog and it comes running back to him. He reaches out, hand flattened as if to pet it. Dick does nothing. Then, quicker than thought, he grabs its leg and wrenches it backward. There’s an audible snap, and the dog howls in pain.

“I made it easier for you,” he says, and he’s smiling like it’s the best joke.

The dog is shivering now, cowering down in the corner and licking its lips. It darts its gaze back and forth across the room, but avoids looking at either of them. 

“Do you want me to break the other one?” 

“No,” Dick says, “no, just… wait.”

Slade’s given him one bullet and it’s already in the chamber. 

Is he quick enough to turn the gun toward him, aim, strike a shot that’ll wound him enough to get away?

No, it won’t happen. The pistol is chambered in .22LR, one of the smallest and least powerful rounds. That would be barely a bee sting to someone like Slade, especially since he couldn’t risk aiming at the head. 

“Make no mistake,” Slade had told him the first day he was forced to the shooting range. “This is what we’re starting you off with, and it’s a small cartridge, but _any_ firearm can kill.”

“Not if it’s unloaded,” Dick said, just to be recalcitrant. 

“Then it becomes a bludgeoning weapon.” 

Slade came up behind him, wrapping his arms around Dick’s body and placing the gun in his hands. He pulled Dick up against him, and, with something approaching gentleness, positioned him in the proper shooting stance. Although they were clothed and Slade’s breath wasn’t pitched with lust, it was still uncomfortably intimate, and he’d longed to squirm away. 

Dick had thought back to the pistol whippings the gang members in Gotham often gave each other. They were brutal, and resulted in broken jaws and unconsciousness. And once he’d watched a thug run out of ammo; the man had then switched to holding his rifle by the stock and thrust the butt with great force into his opponent’s cheek. The other man had dropped straight down, either passed out or dead.

Those were all things he’d _seen_ , but not actively considered. He’d never looked at a firearm and imagined the ways he could cause damage with it. Instead it had been an analysis of how to subdue or disarm the wielder. 

On that inaugural day of firearms training he’d shot a .22LR pistol, same caliber as the one he’s holding now. He’d been surprised by how easy it was. Trigger pull after trigger pull, over and over, and the recoil was nonexistent. Only his index finger became sore. 1000 rounds fired, the brass casings littering the floor like tinsel fallen from a Christmas tree, and dozens of targets that lit up when shot at. Over the course of a few hours, he’d gone from barely hitting the paper to making all shots within the target’s outer ring. 

And now, after over two months of this, he’s thinking with disappointment that he hasn’t been given a pistol of larger caliber. 

This is what he’s become. 

He knows what Slade’s doing. He knows the why and how. This is meant to lessen his distaste for killing. Even if it’s only a dog, it’s a start. A start to breaking his resistance. 

But then-- hasn’t he already been broken?

“I can still do the other one," Slade offers. “Will it help motivate you?” 

He saw himself in the bathroom mirror this morning, when Slade dragged him into the oversized shower. He’d hardly recognized his own reflection. His whole body is marked with vivid bruises, and the bite marks stand out with angry red indentations. They’ve barely scabbed over, the skin made sensitive by the rub of Slade’s stubble. 

And the places on his body that are more sensitive still-- they haven’t stopped bleeding at all. He doesn’t know if they ever will. 

“Soon you’ll enjoy this,” Slade had said, grabbing at those places with rough and demanding hands, “but your body isn't developed enough just yet.” 

And, disgustingly, Dick had thought it’d be better if he _could_ enjoy it. The prospect revolted him, because he knew that if he felt pleasure it meant he wanted it, but-- but-- anything had to be an improvement over the agony and repulsion he felt every time Slade touched him. 

He wonders what will happen to him if he refuses to shoot. 

Either way the dog’s going to die. He has to kill it, or Slade will. The only difference is what’ll happen to _him_. 

He can’t take another punishment like the one from a few nights before. Even if his body doesn’t give out, his mind will. He can’t _take_ it. He knows he can’t take it. Maybe someone else could, someone better than him, but as far as he’s concerned--

He’s a coward, and no justification will ever change that.

He aims the pistol at the dog’s head and pulls the trigger. There’s a bang, but-- he must have missed, because the dog is still alive, cramming itself into the corner. Slade shoots it, and then he turns to Dick.

He’s smiling again. 

“You aimed well,” he says. “If you’d had a real bullet, you would have killed it.” 

“... What?” 

“Surely you didn’t think I’d give you live rounds in a setting like this.” 

Of course.

He’d never had a choice about the dog in the first place. He’d known that. But even in terms of thought, Slade had won. There had also been no possibility of wounding the man, of escaping. Dick hadn’t known _that_ , and yet he’d chosen to comply. 

It’s working. Slade’s tactics are working. 

“You’ve done a good job,” Slade says. “Come here.” 

“Yes, sir.”

He moves forward, and it’s without resistance, like water running downhill. 

* * *

Dick sprints through the Manor. The stress fractures scream as his bare feet slap the hardwood floors, but it’s not important. Nothing is, except finding Damian.

Up to the third floor, then down the east wing until he’s at the end of the corridor. He shoves open the door to Rose’s suite and something crashes off the wall from the impact. 

If Damian were hiding anywhere, it would be here. Maybe he’d tracked Dick to this place and thought to use it as his retreat, too. 

The first two rooms are empty and he charges through them, towards the third. He kicks the silk dividing screen away from the door it shields, and kicks that open, too. It cracks in half near the doorknob. Then he’s running into the room, clearing it with his eyes the same way he’d survey an unfamiliar area for threats. 

There’s nothing. No track marks in the dust beside Dick’s own. No recently disturbed fabrics or moved furniture. Even the trinkets he’d accumulated are still on Rose’s vanity. 

He’s not here.

And if he’s not here-- then he’s somewhere out there, in that cold and careless world that Dick’s tried so hard to insulate him from. He knows Damian, knows him better than anyone else does. 

Standing in Rose’s room, he remembers last night, barely, in small snippets nearly overcome by fog. Crying that he should be left on the road to be run over. Jason’s voice, so angry and stern, rough with an accent that only comes up under duress. Being dragged out of the car and into the house like he was a dead animal. 

And then there was Damian.

Damian had seen him, last night-- seen him fucked up and tear-stained and incoherent, rambling about wanting to die and how he was worthless. And Damian loves him, loves him like Dick is his father instead of Bruce. Bruce had been right; Damian would always love him best. 

And as for Dick himself, he… loves Damian as if he were his own son. He’d always known it, in some nebulous and buried way, but their conversation a few nights before had cemented it. Damian, so lost and alone, clinging to Dick for affection and approval… he’d finally realized it. 

He loves him. Loves him not just as a little brother, but as his own flesh and blood.. Damian is _his_. He feels guilty, because it seems like he’s usurping Bruce’s place, but--

Bruce has never tried to fill it.

And so, in the rush of that love, Dick panics.

This can’t actually be happening. Damian wouldn’t be _stupid_ enough to go to Slade. He couldn’t, he really couldn’t. 

But he knows, and it’s like smelling the bitter almonds around a poisoned body.

If it were for Dick, Damian would do anything. He’s seen the wreckage that Slade caused, a silent observer to Dick’s downward spiral, concerned and not knowing how to fix it, but overwhelmed with a desire to help him feel _better_.

And in Damian’s mind… that would mean going after Slade.

He should have known better than to let Jason handle the boy’s urge to take revenge. Threatening Damian with physical harm-- that had never worked. He’d grown up accustomed to it. And Jason’s threat had been so empty, so obviously exaggerated, and Damian never listened to anyone but Dick anyway.

This was his fault. He’d been so caught up in his own pit of misery that he hadn’t even thought to attend to Damian’s feelings. He hadn’t sought him out to reassure him; he’d waited for the boy to come to him, which he’d never do as often as he needed.

And now he’s in danger. 

He swipes all of Rose’s possessions off the desk, sits down, and begins to sob. 

He’s been crying for so long that it’s made his body even more exhausted than it already is. That’s when he hears the broken door get shoved out of the way, scraping on the floor. Then the shattered glass is being swept away, and two voices talk lowly.

He doesn’t bother to look in their direction. 

If these are ghosts of the Manor’s past, come to correct his desecration of Rose’s refuge, then he’s ready to face their judgement. They’ve seen everything, and they have weighed him, and measured him, and of course he’s been found wanting.

Rose will watch on, her portrait flat on the floor, with her intelligent eyes and narrow, contemplative mouth. When he’s raised up onto the wall and they bring out the nails, he’ll deserve it, and he won’t say that anyone has abandoned him. He won’t thirst for forgiveness. 

It’s a punishment he deserves.

And so he doesn’t look up. He feels hands on his wrist, and they’re not ethereal. They’re warm, and human, and he feels a flash of disappointment that his time hasn’t come.

“He’s having a panic attack,” he hears Tim say. “His heart rate is through the roof.” 

“No shit,” comes Jason’s voice. 

If he can’t be punished by the eternal spirits of this place, then maybe his brothers will do it in their stead. He’s the cause of this grand disaster, the link of the chain that breaks and sends everything crashing to the ground. Crushed bodies and ruined shows. That’s all he’s left behind.

“Dick,” Jason says. “Hey, Dickface.”

He can’t respond. He’s too busy choking on the images of Damian hurt, Damian in that compound, Damian under that man’s control.

It’s unbearable.

He’d rather die than see that happen, but it _is_ happening, somewhere away from here, and it’s all because of him. 

Someone slaps his face. He doesn’t feel it. He’ll pay any price, undergo any torture, to save Damian. That’s all he can think about. 

“I’m fucking _talking_ to you.” Then Jason grabs his chin and forces him to look at him. His grip is firm and his hand’s big enough to spread across the entirety of Dick’s chin and neck. 

He trusts Jason enough that he doesn’t resist. Odd, he knows. This is almost a choking gesture, and that’s-- that’s not good right now. Not with all he’s been remembering.

But it’s Jason, and despite everything that’s happened in the past, Dick trusts him to do no harm, even in a position like this. 

“Hi,” he whispers. His breath is coming in hiccups and it’s hard to speak, much less raise his head up to look him in the face, but Jason’s hand is holding all of its weight.

“Hey,” Jason replies. “We were looking for you. Found you by the sound of your damn phone ringing.” 

This close, Dick can see every striation of his eyes, the strange, near-luminescent green that had come upon him after the Pit. They’re intense, but his face isn’t. It looks… sad.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Jason’s jaw clenches, and behind him, Tim’s eyebrows furrow. 

“You’ve got nothing to be fuckin’ sorry for,” he says. “Now, come on.” 

He unclenches his fingers from the edge of the desk and spares one last glance at Rose’s portrait. She stares up at him, disapproving and disappointed. 

She’s not the only one.

Jason keeps an arm around his shoulder as they leave the room and descend three floors to the main level. Dick’s stumbling over his own feet, as if he’s still drunk, and Jason steadies him while they go. 

They end up in the living room. Jason and Tim have a quiet conversation at one end, and Dick hugs the armrest of the couch where he’s been deposited.

Previously he’d thought that he’d experienced every pain, every heartbreak. Loss of parents, and of friends, and all the horrible things to be seen on Gotham’s streets, and the violation of his body and his mind.

But this is a new misery that surpasses everything. He cries some more, oblivious to their conversation, and then they come closer. Jason sits down beside him.

“I’m not sure that this is ethical,” Tim says.

Dick doesn’t understand, and he also doesn’t care. He doesn’t _care._ All that’s important is Damian, and his safety, and he’s so fucking inept, and worthless, and here he is being _babied_ like he’s some sort of charity case.

“We’ve got to find him,” he says faintly, and Tim shushes him, stroking his hair with gentle hands. Jason’s flicking his index finger against Dick’s inner elbow. 

“We will,” Jason says to him, voice so soft it seems like a dream. Then, to Tim: “Fuck ethical. Don’t you have _eyes_?” 

“...I do,” Tim replies. There’s a little more tapping on the inside of his elbow, and then he gives Jason something. “Here. 4 milligrams.” 

He feels a prick in his cubital vein.

“... What is that?” 

“Something that’ll help,” Jason says, and Dick slumps into his lap. Jason puts an arm over him. “You need to rest a little, okay?” 

“Okay,” he agrees, and then the trouble goes away.

* * *

Loud voices echo into the living room, and he twitches awake, nearly falling off the couch. He must have been asleep for a long time-- it’s dark outside, and rain pounds against the window panes. Jason and Bruce compliment the thunder, voices booming as they yell.

“They’re really going at it,” Tim says when he sees that Dick is up. He’s typing away on his laptop. “I’d tell you to go back to sleep, but I don’t think they’re going to shut up any time soon.” 

“... How long has this been going on?” 

“The argument, or the screaming?” 

“Both.” 

“... About thirty minutes ago they went to go make food and never came back. Pretty sure they started arguing as soon as they left.” 

He says it forebodingly, as if they’ve disappeared into the Arctic on a long expedition and haven’t been heard from since. Then again, one-on-one time between the two of them always ends up as a vicious battle, so maybe Tim’s tone is appropriate.

“And the screaming?” 

“That started a few minutes ago. Jason called Bruce a sanctimonious, hypocritical asshole, and then Bruce said that he didn’t need censure from someone with no moral code.” 

Sounds like them.

“God, Timmy, you should have woken me up. You don’t need to listen to this.”

“I’m seventeen, not _seven,_ ” he says, sounding a little annoyed. “I’m not going to break just because they’re yelling.” 

“I know,” Dick says. Tim _won’t_ break. He’s stronger. He’s the one who found Bruce, after all, and he’s sitting there actually looking for _answers_ as Dick drowns himself in nightmares and memories.

(Often, they’re the same thing.)

“What can I do to help?” he says. 

Tim studies him with that scientific scope, and says, too level to be anything but serious, “Take care of yourself and let us do the investigation.” 

Dick gives him a _look_ , and the yelling continues.

“Or,” Tim says, “if you feel like going to shut them up, that would be nice, too.” 

Dick chooses the latter. It’s something actually attainable. ‘Taking care of himself.’ What a stupid thing to suggest. There’s nothing to care _for._

He gets up, noting with displeasure that his foot hurts worse than it had yesterday. Running through the Manor hadn’t done him any favors. He refuses to limp, and goes down the hallway until he’s made it to the kitchen. He stands just out of sight and listens. It’s okay; it’s not eavesdropping if it’s about _him_. Jason’s voice is simmering, not quite as loud as it can get, but full of poison. 

"You know what happens to pretty little boys and girls, Bruce? You know what men like him _do_?” 

"I know he abused him--"

" _Abused_? That's what you're gonna call it?”

“It’s what happened.” 

“Bullshit! You and your stupid fucking clinicism. I bet you said that the Joker just murdered me, right? You didn’t tell people he beat me half to death and then blew me the fuck up! No, that’s too _harsh_ \--”

“That’s not what we’re discussing right now--”

“Are you fucking blind? He’s imploding! Slade _raped_ him and _beat_ him and _mindfucked_ him for three months straight and all you can say is that it was ‘abuse’?!” 

If he doesn’t intervene there’ll be a fight, a real one. He’s seen Jason morph into this creature of rage before. When he’s like this, no apology can talk him down. He’ll end up hurting something or someone, and if it keeps going, it’ll be himself and Bruce.

“You know,” he says, coming into view, “if you’re going to scream at each other about stuff like this, you can at least wait until you’re somewhere out of earshot.” 

They turn to face him, eyes wide, as if they’re dumbstruck by his appearance.

“I may be _imploding_ ,” Dick says into the silence, “but I’m not _deaf_.” 

Jason’s shoulders lose some of their tension, and he says, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

Dick ignores him, and just keeps standing there, trapped in the threshold like a spirit in limbo. He doesn’t want to go back to Tim, but he doesn’t want to be here either.

They’ve found Rose’s rooms. There’s really no escape now. 

Bruce picks up a plate that has some kind of sandwich on it and thrusts it toward him. 

“Take it,” he says, as if the entire preceding conversation hadn’t occurred. “You need to eat.” 

“I’m not a child.” 

“Then don’t make me treat you like one,” Bruce says.

Dick doesn’t take the plate. 

“I’m not hungry,” he says, and it feels like he’s been having to tell people that for weeks now. He’s not a goose used for producing foie-gras; he has the _right_ to not eat.

Slade had threatened to force-feed him, and he’d even gotten close to doing it. He’d brought out a long nasogastric tube from his extensive medical storage and explained how it worked in great detail. 

“I learned to do this,” he’d said, “when I was in charge of long-term interrogations. The prisoners always thought they could get out of it by refusing to eat.” 

Dick had tried to convince himself that his autonomy couldn’t be overrun in that way, too-- tried to believe that Slade was just bluffing.The way he talked about it, though… 

“I use these instead of an esophageal tube because it allows the detainee to speak, and they don’t present a risk of damaging the vocal cords.”

Then he set down a plate of chicken alfredo-- high in calories, he said, for a growing boy.

“You can still choose the easy way,” he’d said.

And Dick did. Just like with everything else, Slade wore him down.

The alfredo had been delicious, too. With every bite he ate he’d despised himself more and more. He couldn’t control what was done to his body, and he couldn’t control what went into it, either.

In all senses of the phrase.

It was fucking sick.

“Dickface,” Jason says. “Snap back to reality.” 

He wonders if that’s an Eminem reference. Dick has lost himself, so it would be fitting.

“M&M? Like the candy?” 

“ _God_ , Bruce,” Jason says, not sounding mad at all, “you are so fucking old.” 

And just like that, the tension diffuses.

Bruce puts down the plate and sends Dick a wink when Jason’s not looking. He says, “It’s not my fault that all you kids listen to is the hippity-hoppity these days.” 

“That song’s from 2002,” Jason says. “It’s _literally_ older than Tim. Hardly ‘these days’.” 

“What’s older than me?” comes Tim’s voice, and he enters the kitchen by sidling past Dick, who’s still in the doorway. He grabs the sandwich off the plate and takes an obnoxiously big bite.

“Good music,” says Bruce. Tim shrugs and sits down at the bar. His mouth is so full that his jaw seems to dislocate and reinstate itself every time he chews. 

Dick’s overwhelmed by a sudden rush of affection. This is his family, and they’re playing out this charade of silliness for his sake.

“Take a load off, Dickie,” Bruce says, pulling out another chair to the bar. 

“Take a load for free,” Jason continues.

Tim’s voice is muffled around the sandwich, but he manages to squeeze out, “And put that load right on me.” 

“Talk about old music,” Dick huffs, but he does sit down. He feels stupid, going along with this when Damian’s _out there_ , but it’s so nice, this distraction.

He knows they’re doing it on purpose, and that makes it even nicer somehow. They’re the net that always manages to save him.

Hopefully they can save Damian, too.

* * *

Slade takes him to a meeting with some ‘associates’ and Dick sits quietly beside him at the table, saying nothing. He doesn’t want to be a part of this, and technically he’s not. He’s simply an observer.

But Bruce always said that observing something without taking action was the way of the unjust. 

Dick’s not in compliance with anything Bruce holds dear. Not anymore. He’s pretty sure there’s guidelines unspoken, such as not letting an enemy use your body for pleasure, and not allowing yourself to submit out of fear, but Bruce had probably thought they were so obvious he hadn’t needed to mention them. 

And so here he is, at a dinner table in a surprisingly nice private apartment complex, as Slade and five other men discuss details of an upcoming drug shipment from Latin America. Not the worst of crimes, he knows. The drug trade hurts communities and ruins lives, but at least it’s not human trafficking, or snuff films.

(He’s learned that frequently, those two go together. God, the things that Bruce had kept him protected from. The things he hadn’t realized were _possible_.)

He doesn’t recognize any of these men, not even their voices. They seem to be regular people, insofar as regular people plan things like this. Yuppies trying to get their own hookup straight from the source. Typical. Slade doesn’t care about the particular degree of villainy, as long as he’s making money. For this job he’s providing consultation on guards and shipping procedures; apparently this is the first time they’ve tried to ship in their own stuff.

“What do you think?” Slade says.

Dick looks at him. He can’t ask him to repeat the question. That’ll make Slade look bad, and he’ll be punished. Despite all his deliberate inattention, he’s managed to catch most of the conversation, and he takes that chance.

“I think,” he says, “that it’s stupid to load that much coke into one ConEx.”

Slade’s mouth lifts a little. “And why is that?” 

“They open them at random. Everyone knows that. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” 

Everyone does not, in fact, know this. He only knows it because of all the shipping back and forth that went on in the circus, and Slade knows it because he’s _Slade_. These men, though, in their Brooks Brothers shirts and Armani shoes-- Dick’s seen their type before. People who earn some decent money and get more than a little interested in coke. 

They’re Bruce’s complete inferiors.

“I concur with my protégé's assessment,” Slade says, and his smile is apparent now. Even the men can see it, and they smile too, like Dick is adorable. 

The men agree to split the import between five ConExs on two different ships each chartered by unrelated captains. It’s unfathomable, the amount of money they’re spending on this whitecollar addiction of theirs. Over six million dollars. And Slade had said this was barely worth his time, that he was only going in person as another training opportunity for Dick. 

“It’s the safest way,” Dick assures them, as if this is something he’s done before. “Much less chance of losing your cargo.” 

They leave and head to the parking garage. He follows Slade without resistance, just like he’d followed him in. They’re in Gotham again. 

He hasn’t planned anything. The memory of Slade’s last job here, and what he’d tried to do, and the punishment that had followed… it’s inerasable. They say that the more you think about something, the deeper it ingrains itself into your neural pathways. 

If that’s the case, Dick’s never going to forget what happened.

It's been worse, since. Since he'd jumped. Even as Dick's molded himself into compliance, it's as if Slade enjoys his reactions, and so there's more pain, more indignity. He didn't know things could ever be so perverted. He'd never even _thought_ of sex before, aside from its fact as a biological activity, but surely this can't be natural. This can't be normal.

Every part of him hurts. The deep churning in his abdomen, as if someone's twisting his intestines. That's always there now. The pain when sitting or walking, and which Slade chides him for when they 'train', when he winces and tries to roll away from this grab or that touch on the mat. Slade's inescapable, both when sparring and... when abusing him.

There's no way he can survive this.

He's not going to come out of this whole.

In this society, Slade's area of expertise, there's no place for people like him. He's changing and changing and _changing_.

Eventually there will be nothing of him left. Just a marionette that Slade uses as he likes. A living flesh doll to be pinned down and made to do whatever--

Whatever he wants.

On the drive into the city, Slade had said, “I hope you’ll have a better time than our previous trip. It’s all up to you.”

It _was_ up to him.

And the fearful creature that he's become had made its choice. Go along with it. It won't stop hurting, but at least it'll hurt less.

Disgusting.

How can he claim to have ever been a hero?

They’re leaving the city now. He looks at the wheel, and Slade’s casual one-handed driving. Then he looks outside. There’s no traffic. It’s 3 AM, and even here, in the middle of the city, it’s deserted. 

They’re going the speed limit. 45 miles per hour.

“It’s unbelievably stupid,” Slade had said when he’d asked about it, “to break minor laws while in the commission of major crimes.” 

“You’re afraid of the cops?” Dick said incredulously. 

“No,” Slade replied, “but it’s best to be as wise as a snake and quiet as a dove. Attracting needless attention is what gets so many others caught.” 

Dick couldn’t argue with that. Slade ran a smooth operation, right under the noses of major law enforcement entities. It was like he ghosted through the world, transparent and silent, leaving corpses in his wake that were only discovered long after he’d gone. 

They come to a stoplight. No one is at the other side of the intersection. They sit and wait obediently for the light to turn green.

“You exceeded my expectations tonight,” Slade says, and he sounds like any pleased parent. “I’m proud.”

Dick wants to stay silent, but instead he replies, “I tried.”

It’s the truth, and he still has enough sense of himself to know that’s fucking awful. 

“You’ve earned the night off,” Slade says, and then-- this is even more awful--

“Thank you.”

He’s actually thanking him. He’s _thanking_ Slade for saying he won’t assault him tonight. Oh, it happened this morning, and before they left for Gotham, and it’ll happen tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on and so forth and as his will be done, both in Dick’s dreams and in reality, so that it’s never-ending.

Slade’s steering with one knee now. He’s using both hands to find and light a cigarette.

The speed limit has increased to 55 miles an hour. 

Dick lunges for the wheel, movement hidden in the dark, and he pulls it as hard as he can toward him, spinning it until it can no longer turn. Slade curses and strikes out at him, but the car is already on its trajectory, wheeling in a half-circle.

It crashes into the dividing wall with immense momentum, and Dick’s entire body jolts with the movement before the airbags deploy. It’s like being smothered, and he struggles out of them. His vision is strobed by the car’s hazard lights going off, and in their intermittent illumination he sees that the left side of the dash has been crumpled.

Slade is trapped. He's alive, but he's trapped.

He fumbles with the door handle, hoping desperately that his side of the vehicle hasn’t been damaged. Slade is groaning something. It’s not coherent yet, but the man's enhanced. It's not going to take long for him to recover.

It's so dark, and he has to get away.

He _has_ to get away.

He'd rather die than find out what Slade will do to him for this.

His door has been crushed, and the window is shattered. In the frenetic shine of the hazard lights, the individual shards of glass clinging to the door frame flash with promise and danger.

This is his chance.

His hands are shaking and his eyes can't focus, and with each passing minute the panic rises higher. He can't get his seat belt undone, can't steady himself long enough to find it.

He grabs a chunk of the glass with his bare hand and it cuts into his fingers. He starts sawing at the seat belt.

Slade’s regaining consciousness. 

Dick lashes out blindly at him with the glass, and returns to cutting the belt. He rips it away from the buckle and then he's _free_. He drags himself through the window. The glass shreds his clothing and digs into his body but it doesn't matter. He falls gracelessly onto the pavement and uses the dividing wall to get to his feet. Then, he’s off. His left arm is _hurting_ and his ankle feels unstable, twisting unreliably as he steps, but he runs like he’s never run before. 

This is it.

He's got to get away or Slade will kill him. Either his body or his soul. He’s sure of it. 

He jumps over a chain link fence separating two businesses and he’s off again. He’s starting to feel lightheaded, and he realizes under the sickly street lamps that he’s leaving a trail of blood behind. Easy to track, easy to find.

The river. He knows this city like the back of his hand, even if it’s different without night vision and on the street-level and wounded and alone and in a panic, and okay, maybe it’s not so familiar after all, but the river.

He’s near the _river_. He keeps sprinting. He’s afraid to look over his shoulder. He doesn’t want to see what might be his demise.

And finally he reaches it, the bridge that stretches over the east branch of Gotham’s main tributary to the sea. 

The water glitters in the dark, inviting him in. 

He doesn’t hesitate. 

He jumps again, this time not expecting much.

* * *

The next morning he checks on Titus and Alfred (the cat), giving them the scant amount of care he finds within himself to spare. They seem confused rather than sad. Alfred is on the bed, curled up on the pillow kept specifically for his behalf. He takes Titus out for a short walk in the dew-covered grass. It’s not necessary; Titus has an enormous doggy door somewhere downstairs, and is good about letting himself in and out. It’s what Damian would want, though, and he does it to honor that.

Jason had spent the night last night, despite his and Bruce’s earthshaking argument earlier in the evening. When Dick treads down to the kitchen he finds that Alfred (the butler) has made a full breakfast. Tim, Bruce, and Jason are all sitting down and eating peacefully. 

Things have gone haywire.

“Here comes my son,” Bruce says, to the tune of the Beatles song. He hasn’t done that in a while. He must really be desperate to cheer him up. 

“Why did you let me sleep so late?” It’s a useless question. He could have set his alarm if he’d remembered.

“That’s a dumbass thing to ask,” Jason retorts. “You slept for ten hours and you _still_ look like one of those sleep-deprived prisoners in Gitmo.”

“Sorry I’m not pretty enough this morning,” he says, and the table falls silent. Everyone’s stopped eating. 

He’s really an asshole.

“Dick,” Tim says, “sit down.”

He says it just the right way, too, banking on Dick’s current guilt. When he wants to, Tim can be as manipulative as anyone else.

Dick sits. 

“We got word from Barbara this morning.” 

His stomach plummets. 

“... What did she find?” 

Tim glances to Bruce, and then to Jason, who takes up the reins. 

“We know Damian is alive,” he says, hands looking absurdly large holding the silverware that’s been in the Wayne family for generations. 

“But,” Dick says. There’s always a ‘but’ in these types of situations. He’s proud that he’s managed to stay this calm. Why are they dragging this out? 

“Don’t lose it,” Jason warns. “Shit’s not healthy.” 

Because their whole lifestyle is so good for them to begin with.

“Get to the point,” he says. 

And they do.

They show him a video. It’s of Damian, from early yesterday morning, taken from the front feed of a corner bakery a block from Gotham Academy. The driver lets Damian out. The boy waves and enters the store. The clip fast-forwards, and he watches closely as, a few minutes later, a boy about Damian’s height and weight emerges, wearing different clothes.

“So that’s how he got out of school,” Dick says. “Smart kid. He goes there sometimes, enough to put the driver at ease, but not enough to be recognized by the workers.” 

“Let’s compliment his prowess at running away _later_ ,” Bruce says tightly. 

Here comes the next video. It’s from about 7 this morning-- not long ago at all. It’s just a clip from a traffic camera, pixelated and out of focus, but it’s clear enough to see into the closest car, where a man and a boy sit, waiting for the light to… turn… _green_. 

It’s Damian and Slade, in a car together, seemingly completely at ease. 

“Alfred found a note in his room last night, after you fell asleep again.” 

They need to stop stringing him along. He feels like he’s going to have a heart attack if they keep explaining things so slowly. 

“And what does it _fucking_ say?” 

“Typical Damian,” Jason tells him. “He says he can’t live with your dishonor being unavenged.”

“My dishonor,” Dick says.

Tim pipes up, in what he clearly believes to be a helpful manner, “He’s talking about--” 

“I know what he’s _talking about_ , thank you very fucking much.” 

“At first we thought that he might have left to join him voluntarily,” Tim says, and immediately, Dick barks out a reply.

“Fuck you,” he says. “ _Fuck_ you.”

“It was only for a second,” Bruce says. “We know him better than that.”

And they don’t, really. None of them do. Maybe they still suspect him of sedition, and aren’t telling Dick because they know how much he cares, and how he’ll take the boy’s side no matter what.

“Yeah, sure,” Dick says, laden with sarcasm. “Either _way_ , regardless of what you believe, this is a good thing.” 

Bruce's gaze sharpens and Tim looks lost. Only Jason's expression remains the same. 

"This is good," he says again. "If he's going along with Slade so easily, then he's not being hurt." 

"Slade could have hurt him to make him cooperate," Tim says tentatively. 

Why can't they see this? Why don't they understand? It's so _simple_. 

"No," Dick says. "That’s not how it works.” 

“Um,” says Tim, “that’s _exactly_ how torture works.” 

This is idiotic. These soi-disant experts of human behavior, and they can’t decipher a simple thing like this. He’d feel irritation if he weren’t so overcome by worry.

“When your dog is already obeying you, there’s no point in punishing it. That’s how Slade thinks.” 

“... Slade hurt you,” Bruce says, as if every syllable is painful.

It’s so obvious. 

“Because like I just goddamn said, I didn’t _fucking_ obey him.” 

“He hurt you in… other ways, too.”

He can’t believe they’re being so dense. 

"He's not a pedophile,” Dick says, and the others look at him like he’s lost his mind even more than he already has.

"He is the literal _definition_ of a pedophile," Jason growls. "He has sex with _children._ "

"... Only ever me," Dick says. "And I wasn't a child."

Tim winces. 

"Dick," Bruce begins. 

“Shut up. None of you know anything about it, or him, or how he works.” 

No one says anything until Bruce takes the lead.

"I didn't think Damian would give in after less than a day," he says and that...

That's the wrong fucking thing.

"Give in," Dick says. "You think he's _given_ _in_?"

Bruce seems to have realized exactly what he just implied. He starts to reply. Dick doesn't want to hear it. 

"You think that's wrong, don't you? You think he should martyr himself and suffer."

"No," Bruce says, "that's not what I meant."

He's such a fucking liar.

"You want him to endure Slade's punishments rather than look disloyal to you."

“That’s not it at all,” Bruce says. “Rather, we know his past, and combined with Slade’s influence, it makes me worry that other people might get hurt.”

"I don’t fucking care _what_ he does as long as _he’s_ not getting hurt." 

"We’re on the same side," Bruce says. "I care about him too."

"Nice time to start showing it," Dick sneers, and then he goes for the jugular. "You wait until he's no longer here, and then tell the _rest_ of us how much he means to you."

“Alright,” Tim says, as if he’s a coach on a little league team that’s begun to squabble. “We need to focus on the issue at hand. Arguing isn’t conducive to making progress.”

“I agree with the Replacement,” Jason puts in, and _that_ is a sentence none of them had ever expected to hear. It’s so unusual that it derails the tension momentarily. Then Dick’s thoughts send tremors through the crystal of the moment. 

“Listen," he says, and he's got to be reasonable. If he keeps freaking out then they're going to sedate him. Again. As if that's not a violation of his autonomy all on its own. "I know you guys don’t trust me with much right now, but I know him. I can help.”

“We’ve always wanted your help,” Tim says, slowly, “and we trust you as much as we always have.”

Right.

Lie to the crazy person-- they’re insane, so how would they be able to tell? Maybe they aren’t lying, and he’s just interpreting it that way. But no, that would be even crazier-- this has to be the truth.

“Tell us what you can about him,” Bruce says, “if you think it’ll be useful.”

And Dick does tell them. No one comments when he starts to shake and sweat and tremble. They give him that bit of dignity, at least. 

It’s all he has at the moment, and he’s grateful for it. He stares down at the table, and speaks and speaks and speaks, and when his tears begin to fall onto the beautiful mahogany, he reaches out with his fingertips and wipes them away. It leaves streaks of moisture on the glossy varnish.

The tears continue to come, hot and unwanted, peppering the table like they’re markers for every sin he's ever committed. 

* * *

Night comes, and Bruce and Jason and Tim are all suited up. They have plans to scour the city-- Barbara’s last video of Damian and Slade is of them still in Gotham. They might have changed cars or appearances, and maybe they were already out of state, or wherever Slade’s hideout was these days, but they might also be lying low. Most security cameras still weren’t hackable via the internet, so part of the game plan was to gather the information manually.

Of course, Dick’s not included in their scheme.

Tim and Jason have already left when he heads down to the Cave. Bruce is at the Batcomputer, editing a final list of the camera locations Oracle had sent. 

He takes advantage of Bruce’s distraction, and gets dressed in his suit anyway. Alfred had repaired it soon after he’d gotten injured. It’s a little loose on him, which, whatever-- they’re tailored so precisely that gaining or losing five pounds affects the fit. 

He even puts makeup on over the blotchiness from the burn. It’s improved quite a bit; the skin just looks splotchy now, like an uneven sunburn, and the DermaBlend they use for covering body scars works on his face, too. 

“Hey,” he says, after he’s changed, “thanks for letting me in on the whole plan to, you know, _find my little brother_.” 

“We didn’t leave you out,” Bruce says. “You know exactly what’s going on.”

“And you don’t want me going out to accomplish the incredibly dangerous task of finding a few old camera feeds?” 

"You need to rest," and that's a joke. How can he rest while Damian's out there?

Did Bruce fucking rest when he'd been in Slade's control?

Dick turns to leave. It’s not worth it. This argument isn’t worth it. He can be out with Tim and Jason, who’ll bitch at him less, and ignore this man who always tries to restrict him.

He’s not a prisoner. He can do what he fucking _wants_.

And then, like he always does, Bruce gets up, and he puts his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and tries to spin him around. Dick refuses this time. He refuses to give this any more attention than it’s already gotten. 

“Let go of me,” Dick says. He can feel himself coiling.

“You’re not going out there. You’re injured.” 

Bruce thinks his foot is going to slow him down? Damian’s out there right this minute, and Dick’s supposed to sit still? Because of what, a few already healed scratches?

Just like with the window, he’s fast. The fastest. Bruce doesn’t see it coming. He turns tightly on his heel and strikes the hand away from him in a spinning hook kick, textbook perfect. The crack of the impact resounds through the room and Dick grins like a coyote as he moves safely out of range. His foot screams, but he doesn't _care_.

“Do I fucking _seem_ injured, Bruce?” 

The armor of the Batsuit is protection from almost any melee blow, but Bruce is holding his arm with his other hand, right where the kick had landed. As if it fucking hurts. He knows it doesn’t. He meets Bruce’s eyes with his own, and the shock he sees isn’t surprising. 

They’ve hit each other a lot. It comes with the territory of training and sparring together.

But never in anger. 

Never like this.

“Just-- keep your hands _off_ me,” he says. He’s not going to apologize. It’s ridiculous-- Bruce trying to keep him tucked safely in bed during a situation like _this_. “And stop treating me like I'm incompetent.” 

“Your face is too noticeable right now,” Bruce says. “It puts our identities at risk.” 

And this is what it’s really about. Their _identities_. As if Slade doesn’t already know. As if he actually cares who they are. Bruce isn’t worried about Dick being ‘injured’; he’d been using that as a pretty excuse, and since that hasn’t worked he’s gone for a more impersonal route: _if you do this, then you’ll harm the rest of us_.

And fine. 

Maybe Bruce is right. Maybe he will be putting everyone at risk. Maybe everyone’s identities are more important than one little boy’s misery. 

“Okay,” Dick says. “You don’t want me out in uniform? I won’t go out _in uniform_.”

He starts to strip out of his suit right then and there. Modesty is nonexistent between them. He leaves everything on the floor, petulantly, and then in his underclothes he’s striding toward the elevator.

“Wait,” Bruce says. He sounds helpless and desperate.

Good.

Let him feel that way for once.

“Fuck you,” Dick says, and then he’s gone. 

* * *

He goes to a bar. Not one of his usual joints. It’s upscale and déclassé all at once, exuding the vibe intentionally to attract those with well-lined pockets and untouched hearts. 

He hasn’t been here in years. Over ten years, in fact. The basement had been an establishment of one of Slade’s acquaintances, and he’d come here a few times with Slade to conduct business. 

That’s how he knows. 

It’s like angling in an old and secret haunt. Maybe the terrain on the shore of the lake is different now, but it’s still the same place, still the same type of fish swimming under the surface.

He’s so very, very good at this sort of thing. Shame he doesn’t like it. 

But for Damian. For Damian, for that child, for that boy that feels closer than his own beating heart, he’ll do _anything_.

Slade’s men always sit at a large table in the corner. They even have a parody of Superman’s ‘S’ carved into it as their marker. 

He sits at the bar as near as he can to their table, and picks out his mark. Not the newest, and not the most experienced, either. The man’s hands and face are more tan than his arms, and he’s sporting a high and tight haircut. He’s wearing jump boots, and they’re ladder-laced, creased, and well-worn.

A military man. He’s a man with the skills Slade seeks out, but he hasn’t been out long enough to lose the affinity for the haircut, or get rid of the mismatched tan, or move on from his issued boots. 

It’s worth a shot.

Dick makes eye contact with him, and he gets up to come up to the bar. So predictable. He gives the man just enough room to squeeze in at the bar beside him, and says, “Hey, trooper.” 

The man gives him an appraising look. “How’d you know?” 

“Obvious,” Dick says. “The boots, the haircut… the _physique_.”

“Really,” the man laughs. He’s one or two drinks in already. Makes things easier. Dick hasn’t done this in a while, and he doesn’t want to be seen as clumsy. The target being tipsy always helps. 

Dick smiles in the way that has literally once before given someone heart palpitations. He looks good. In this moment he’s infinitely aware of his own perfection. 

“Inquiring minds want to know your story,” he says, and then the man buys him a jack and coke. 

From there, it’s easy. So so easy. They chat for a bit, and the man’s compatriots give him an amused but understanding look, and then they’re out the back door of the bar. 

This is what he’s good at, and it feels so wonderful to finally be useful again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all's comments from last chapter really, really pushed me to get this done in less than a week, so thank you very much! I know this is a bit of a shorter chapter, but a lot happens and hopefully it's satisfying anyway. I look forward to reading each and every comment. :)


	3. Necessary Cruelties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick's gotten the information they need to retrieve Damian, and the Batfamily plans their avenue of attack. Late at night, Jason and Dick come up with their own.

“Hope you guys had fun pilfering camera reels,” Dick says the next morning. “Find anything?” 

He’d gotten home about an hour before them and had used the thousand-dollar espresso machine to make himself a triple shot. It helped his sore throat, just a little. He drinks it with cream and chocolate chips. A holdover from childhood, and the sugar is enough to hide the bitter taste in his mouth that seems constant these days.

Thankfully it’s still cold enough outside to justify wearing turtlenecks. There are bite marks at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The man hadn’t been gentle. It’s not surprising; most thugs weren’t. Sometimes there were those who wanted to play it sweet and tender, and in a way, that made his skin crawl even more. But at least they didn’t treat him so roughly.

Maybe he’s gotten soft, lulled into the routine of not having to do it. It had been months, and somehow his body seemed to have gotten used to not being-- _used_. Hours later and he still feels tired and filthy, despite the long shower and four different brushings of his teeth. His throat is ravaged, and the rest of his body too. But if that’s the price he has to pay for slacking off, it’s fine, and infinitely more so if it’s for Damian.

Damian.

It’s been at most a little over 48 hours that he’s been with Slade. Dick tries to think back and recall what it had been like for him, those early days of capture, but all that rises up is a wash of sedation and blurred scenery that blends together like an oil painting that was never sealed.

Just like now. God, Jason and Tim had drugged him yesterday morning, injected a benzo right into his vein, and he hadn’t even protested. Hadn’t known what they were doing. Hadn’t _cared_.

Ten years ago he’d taken all his nightmares miles from shore and shoved them off the boat, chained to sink deep and dark below, yet they’ve come to life and crawled back, rotting and ugly, like his own soul. All things wash eventually to dry land, even when set adrift into the wide and seemingly depthless ocean. 

Tim is drinking espresso too, but unlike Dick he takes it straight. So does Bruce. Jason puts marshmallows in his. 

“Barbara’s looking at the footage,” Tim says. “It was slow going; we had to get everything manually and bring it to her, but she's on it now.”

“That’s good.”

He feels like he’s at the poker table, holding a straight flush and knowing everyone else has at most three of a kind.

“Did you get some sleep?” Bruce asks. 

He meets his father’s eyes. How dare he ask this when he _knows_?

“Yeah,” he says, words frothing with malintent, “but mostly I managed to get some info on my own.” 

He sets the paper down on the table. All the details he’d regurgitated in the alleyway along with the man's filth, after he'd gone back to his table. 

“Slade has a hit tomorrow at 9 PM in downtown Gotham. He’s bringing six men with him. Target’s been skimming too much off the top.”

It’s so similar to the time he’d jumped from the building. He feels fuzzy-headed and faint just thinking about it. His body, too-- it reminds him.

Reminds him of it all.

“Where did you get this intel?” Jason asks. He’s ripping one of Alfred’s cinnamon rolls into pieces with the side of a fork. 

“Ran into one of his men,” Dick says, and he doesn’t even fucking care any more. “He was… forthcoming… with the information.”

Tim finishes up his espresso. “Must have been new, if he talked so much.” 

It’s almost funny, the way Tim’s so innocent. Even knowing what he knows, he’s unable to put Dick and such disgusting tactics in the same category. The price of intense intellectualism, and holding someone on a pedestal. 

“Yeah, Timmy,” he says. “He was _spilling_ the details.”

Bruce shoots him an alarmed look and Jason continues to tear the cinnamon roll into tinier and tinier pieces. It’s like he’s trying to atomize it.

“Hey, Replacement,” he says, without a hint of animosity, “we need to go take care of the kid’s animals.”

“... Can’t I finish eating first?”

“Fuckin’ double time it,” he barks, pushing his own plate away. “Do you want to listen to the brat’s bitching when he gets back and finds out Titus didn’t get walked?”

“That dog hates me,” Tim mutters, but he gets up and pushes his chair in anyway. He grabs the cinnamon roll and stuffs it into his mouth. 

“Sacrifices,” Jason says solemnly. “A _good soldier_ always makes _sacrifices_.”

Bruce slumps at those words, and once their footsteps have faded out of hearing range, he says, “Dick, what did you do?”

He should ask instead, _What didn’t you do?_

* * *

He’s losing too much blood. 

He lies on the riprap of the shore underneath the next bridge down the river. He’d tried to drag himself further up the slope, but his left arm is unresponsive. It’s limp at his side, probably dislocated. He hadn’t been able to use it to swim. He's already hacked up a good amount of murky river water from the struggle. 

It’s much darker here, without even Gotham’s faulty streetlights. He’s prone on the rocks and they dig into his cheek, pressing so hard that his lips have split against his teeth and his mouth is slick with blood. Or maybe that’s from the crash. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

He hears clattering as some of the rubble crashes into itself. A few of the smaller stones fall down the bank and splash into the river.

This is it, then.

Slade has found him.

He hopes that instead of strangulation, Slade will just shoot him. That’s the quicker option, but also likely to attract more attention, even though this is Gotham. It doesn't matter much though; he’s going to die anyway. There’s no way that even someone with Slade’s experience could stabilize this kind of bleeding without advanced supplies at hand.

Simple tactics like propping his legs up and pressing a T-shirt against the deepest wound aren't going to do anything besides prolong his time of dying. If he’s going to live, and he’s _not_ , he needs transfusions, and supplemental oxygen, and hemostatic dressings, and forced-air warming. He’s soaked to the bone and too damn depleted to regulate his body temperature. With the blood loss, he’s only going to get colder. Even now the blood surging out of him feels warmer than his skin. 

“Dude,” someone says, “are you dead?” 

It’s definitely not Slade’s voice. He doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. 

He musters the energy to roll over onto his back. The sharp stones stab his spine and ribs, all the bones that have gotten so prominent over these past few months. 

There’s a group of several people, older teenagers it seems like. One of them is holding a blinding flashlight, shining it right onto him, and he flings his working arm across his face.

“No,” he says, and leaves out the part where he feels like it already. It’ll take extra air, and his body’s already deoxygenated enough. No need to add to it. 

“Shit, he’s _not_ dead?” 

“Homeboy got fucked up real bad,” says another voice. 

“Go ‘way,” he slurs. 

“We’re not done with our _mural_ yet,” the first voice says. 

“I don’t think Biggie would give a fuck,” someone else says. “Boy needs an ambulance.” 

If Slade comes, and these people are here, they’ll be killed, too.

“Get _out_ of here,” he says with emphasis, and the effort it takes leaves him completely breathless.

“You on the run, homes?” 

Dick laughs and it hurts his chest.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, I am.” 

“Okay, so no ambulance.” 

“No ambulance,” he agrees, and it’s so funny that they think he’s on the run from the _law_. The exact opposite. He’d welcome the police or paramedics here, if he knew they wouldn’t get killed. But he can’t make the decision to sacrifice their lives. If someone has to die here, he wants it to be only him. 

This is the life he’s chosen, and it’ll be the way he dies.

Saving people, even if they don’t know it.

“Listen,” he wheezes. It takes him several seconds to catch his next breath. He’s been motionless for minutes now and his heart’s still racing. Hypotension and tachycardia. “Call this number.”

He repeats it aloud, slowly and exhaustingly, as a teenager types it into their flip phone. It’s one of Batman’s many private numbers linked to a specific contact, and this one is only for Dick. Not even Alfred knows it. It’s part of their endless failsafes. 

And maybe… that will be enough to get him to answer.

“It’s… a friend,” Dick says. “Call him, and get _out_ of here.” 

The phone rings, and it’s an agony until the other end picks up. 

“Um, yeah,” says the kid. “There’s this boy here, and he’s really fucked up, and he told us to call you?”

There’s a little silence, a muffled male voice, and then, “The bridge underneath Sykes along the river.”

“He says he’s coming,” the kid tells him. 

But that’s too good to be true. It has to be a fantasy. Would Bruce really have kept that line active, after three whole months?

He doesn’t deserve a rescue anyway. Instead, he deserves exactly this. He’d caused the car to crash, after all.

Dick’s concentrating on breathing. He’s never had to focus this hard before, and it’s something that’s so _simple_. His body keeps wanting to breathe shallowly, taking short little gasps, and that’s not good. That’s how people get hypoxic.

He already is. Not enough blood to circulate oxygen through his body. 

He really is going to die. This is absurd. He’s finally gotten away, and here he is, about to get away from life, too.

It’s not like he’d thought. 

He hears the kids leave. Good. What are they doing out this late at night? A mural of some rapper? That’s worth dying for? That’s worth running into him, being found by Slade, getting put down like a dog?

Even if Slade never comes, he’s still going to die, and it’ll be soon. The end result is the same, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s Bruce who finds him, or some vagrants or the police or more teenage kids. He’ll still be a corpse, and he’ll still be his very own crime scene. 

They’ll observe the following: death by exsanguination; body temperature dropped to the low 90s; lacerations consistent with sharp objects; indications of long-term premortem physical and sexual abuse. And even in an hour he’ll be stiff; physical exertion immediately before death causes advancement of rigor mortis due to the depletion of ATP. 

It’s amazing. He’s dying and he’s analyzing himself like a victim on the street.

Bruce would be so proud.

He closes his eyes. It’s the least he can do. His vision is nonexistent anyway, and if he dies with them open he’ll develop tache noire. He doesn’t want Bruce to have to see that on his son.

His son.

Poor Bruce. He’s lost his parents and now he’ll have lost Dick, too.

The world is so quiet now. Even the sound of the water has been smothered. He’s trying to breathe but he’s forgetting more and more. He keeps jolting back to consciousness and every time he goes under it gets harder to surface. 

He doesn’t hear the rush of footsteps until they’re almost beside him. The rocks go flying as someone large and heavy sprints down the embankment and toward him.

“Please just let me die,” he whispers, and he's not sure if it’s out of his own head. 

Then gloved hands are on him, and he must be hallucinating because it’s such a beautiful thing: Bruce’s voice, and he’s saying, “Hold on, hold on.” 

Dick doesn’t have the breath, but if he did, he’d want to tell him that he _has_ been holding on, for so long now, and that he’s ready to let go.

* * *

“Where did you go?” Bruce asks once Tim and Jason leave. 

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” 

“You can’t go out without telling any of us where you’ll be or what you’re doing.” 

Does he even hear himself right now? How controlling he sounds, how restrictive? How condescending?

“Strange,” Dick says. “I could have sworn that I’m 25, and that I’m an adult who can take care of himself.” 

Bruce wipes his face with his hand. His sleeve falls down and Dick sees a small bruise from the kick last night. Good. He’d meant for it to be powerful.

“That’s not it,” Bruce says.

“Then tell me what it is.”

“You went off on your own.”

“Yeah, that’s part of being an adult. I get to go places _all by myself_.” 

“... That’s how you disappeared.” 

“What,” Dick says.

He didn’t just hear that. He really didn’t. There’s no way Bruce would bring this up now, when Damian is actually fucking missing. 

“That’s how we lost you back then,” Bruce says. “And right now, I just-- worry.”

“You’re afraid I’m going to get myself captured by Slade while he _also_ has Damian? How stupid do you think I am?” 

“I’m not concerned about that.” His voice is quiet, and strangely enough he’s not looking Dick in the face any more. 

“Then what _is_ it?”

“... You’re not thinking clearly,” is all he says. 

Oh. _Oh_. This is rich.

“You, who dress up as a _giant flying mammal_ every night to go avenge something that happened thirty years ago, are telling me that _I_ don’t think clearly?” 

Maybe he’s being cruel by bringing up Bruce’s parents, but Bruce is also being cruel by telling him that he’s crazy. _Not thinking clearly_. That’s the same excuse they use for crimes of passion. Or for putting people in the psych ward. 

“... You’re behaving abnormally,” Bruce says, and his voice is stronger now, as if Dick’s retort only served to solidify his opinion. “You’re not eating, your sleeping is irregular, your panic attacks are so severe we’ve had to _sedate_ you--”

“It’s been _twice_ that you guys have given me something, and I didn’t _ask_ for it, you asshole.” 

Bruce takes a big sigh. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he buries his face with both hands. It's a defeated posture that looks bizarre on such a powerful man. 

“I don’t want to argue,” he says, “but I have the feeling that no matter what I say, that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Maybe if I’m drugged up I’ll be more cooperative,” Dick says. “Then I can earn my keep, since I’m clearly so crazy I’m not good for anything else any more.”

Bruce's head pops up, and he looks horrified. What a good actor. 

“You don’t need to do that,” he says flatly. “You _shouldn’t_ do that.”

“It fucking worked, didn’t it?” 

They haven’t verified it yet, obviously, but the man hadn’t been lying. It’s always amazed him, how truthful the average person is when they're on the verge of orgasm. 

“Dick, I want to help you. Tell me what you need and I’ll take care of it, no questions asked.” 

“The only thing that's going to help is finding Damian.”

And it’s somewhat the truth. He'll only keep going downhill if Damian stays missing. But it’s not like he’d been the pinnacle of health and sanity before that. He’d just been better at hiding it.

That stupid fucking dog, and his stupid fucking guilt complex. If he’d just _controlled himself_ for once in his goddamn life, this all could have stayed hidden and buried, the way it’s supposed to be.

But now it’s an exposed grave, shallow and recently uncovered, with a so-called victim inside. His family is the forensic team picking it, and him, apart to find answers. 

“We have the information,” Bruce says, as if Dick doesn’t know it. As if he’s not the one who _got_ it for them in the first place. “We’re going to go in hard, with all we’ve got, and we’re going to get him.” 

“Right, Dick says, and he sinks down into the chair beside Bruce. “Of course you are. And you want me to stay here while you do it?” 

The kitchen is quiet. Somewhere upstairs Titus has found one of his squeaky toys. It sends shrill noises through the house. 

“I want you to do what’s best for yourself, and I want to help you do it,” Bruce says eventually. “I just don’t know what that might be.”

“Me either,” Dick says, “but Damian is a start.” 

Bruce reaches out, slowly and with exaggerated intent. Then, he puts his hand on Dick’s forearm and squeezes. 

“Do what you think is best,” he says. The love he bears is so palpable, so intense, that it nearly washes Dick’s cynicism away. “I’ll support you, no matter what.”

That’s a dangerous sentiment.

“I will,” Dick replies. 

And when Bruce smiles at him, eyes squinted as if he’s in pain, he almost feels guilty.

Almost. 

* * *

He waits till everyone is in their rooms for the night. Tim and Bruce can sleep when they absolutely have to, and they’re resting for tomorrow’s rescue. They’re not rocked by insomnia the way Dick is. The way he knows Jason is.

He raps on the door quietly, for pretense’s sake. Unless Jason were dead asleep he’d have heard him coming, and he’s got to be awake. Light shines from under the doorway, and Jason has never been able to sleep except in total darkness. so it doesn’t surprise him when he hears a gruff, “Come in, Dickface.”

He enters, closing the door behind him. Jason is sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and he’s got an array of weapons around him. 

Dick sits down across from him. 

“I can’t sleep,” he says without prompting. “I mean, I _could_ , but I don’t want to be drugged up any more than I have been.” 

Jason looks at him. “I’d say I’m sorry except I’m not. It was a shitty thing to do, but you were in an even shittier state.” 

“... I’m always in a shitty state these days.” 

“You’ve been better,” Jason agrees. His right hand reaches up to itch his left bicep, and Dick’s eyes follow it, attuned to movement as they are. Jason’s wearing short sleeves, and there’s a square patch on his arm.

“... Is that a nicotine patch?” 

Jason stops and drops his hand back down. 

“I’m not a complete asshole,” he says eventually, “despite all opinions to the contrary.” 

“I never said you were.” 

“Nah,” Jason agrees, “you haven’t. Maybe that’s why I’m doing it.” 

_I don’t like it when you smoke_ , Dick had said during their car ride, and here Jason is, going without it. He really doesn’t deserve such consideration, but he’ll take it. He’s still rational enough to know that it brings up-- _things_. 

“You didn’t have to stop,” he says, despite his pathetic gratitude. “You can just tell me to fuck off when you want to smoke.”

“Again, I’m not a complete asshole.”

“Thank you. It… helps.” It’s hard to utter, to put that weakness into the air while sober and clear-headed, but Jason needs to hear it. Needs to be thanked. It’s not a simple thing.

“Eh,” Jason says, “don’t think I did it all for you. Smoking causes cancer, dontcha know?” 

He doesn’t reply. Instead he watches Jason as he cleans his weapons, polishes his boots, redoes his laces. Not in ladder form. Simple over-and-under. Practical and efficient, like most other things he does. He works swiftly, with no self-consciousness, as if Dick’s not even there. 

“You have quite the arsenal,” Dick says after a few minutes.

Jason snorts. The action shakes his broad shoulders. 

“I plead the Fifth, Officer Grayson."

“I’m not asking in order to judge you.”

“Then why _are_ you asking?” 

Jason’s hands have scars on the knuckles. Not significant, and not something anyone would notice unless they knew what to look for, but they’re a fighter’s hands. Scars from throwing punches to someone’s face with no gloves, no hand protection at all. 

Jason had grown up brawling on the streets, and no amount of civility could or would remove that history from him. 

“... If I said I wanted to kill Slade, what would you say in return?”

Now Jason is looking at him with inscrutable eyes and a flat press of his mouth. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d ask what he’d done to throw you over the edge like that. But I do know better, so I’m not going to say anything.” 

“No comment on how I’ve betrayed Bruce’s morals by even thinking it?” 

Jason glances away for a second, toward the empty and antiquated fireplace, and then back to him. Dick’s not used to this level of careful deliberation from him. Usually he's so quick on the draw, fast with vulgar but accurate repartee. Even his serious ‘conversations’ with Bruce (which always end up as arguments) are rife with profanity and harsh, bitter truth. 

“Everyone has betrayed B’s morals, including himself.” 

It goes unsaid that Jason's the biggest violator of all. They both know it. 

“And if I said that I wanted your help in killing him-- what would you say then?” 

“I’d ask if that’s what you really wanted. If you’d thought about how it would affect you.”

“Oh,” Dick says, and he doesn’t bother to put it into a hypothetical, “I have. For _years_. Ten years, in fact.”

“...Then I’d ask how you wanted it done.”

Dick examines Jason’s pile of weaponry. In a way it’s similar to Slade’s. Everything meant to kill, or at least seriously injure. The knives, so devastatingly effective at slashing through human meat. The handguns of several different calibers, some selected for concealability and others for maximum stopping power. Magazines and speedloaders, so he can continue shooting without much pause.

He reaches down and picks up a weapon. A Kimber 1911. It’s unloaded, magazine dropped and slide racked back, but the heft of the steel is still comforting. This gun has been in Jason’s hands, used to kill countless people. Rapists. Human traffickers. Murderers. 

“Live by the gun, die by the gun.”

It’s so natural in his grip. Has it been years already? Years since the police academy, and even more since Slade? 

He knows exactly how to hold it, and exactly what to do.

“You’re sure that this is what you want?” Jason says. “There’s no going back.” 

“I know,” Dick replies, and the smile on his face feels like concertina wire. “That’s what I’m counting on.” 

* * *

… and he wakes up from an absolutely glorious dream believing in his heart that reality can’t possibly be such an ugly, hateful place. What he’s remembering now must, _must_ be the illusion, and the wonderful things he’d just been experiencing were most certainly the truth. 

He’s somewhere he hasn’t seen in so long it feels like an entire lifetime ago, so this might be a dream too. It’s the advanced care room in the Cave. He has two intravenous lines, and each connects to a bag of blood. He’s lucky. His blood type is A+, one of the most common, and it’s easy to keep in stock. 

… Is it really luck? 

“Dick?” 

It’s Leslie’s voice. She steps into his view. She looks exhausted.

The clock on the wall says 10 AM.

“Long time no see,” he says, and realizes he’s wearing a nasal cannula, too. Oxygen is important in those suffering from reduced aerobic efficiency and especially in those with belabored cardiovascular systems. 

“Don’t joke,” she says. “Not now. You almost _died_ , Dick. A couple of minutes later and--” 

She starts crying, and she muffles it into the sleeve of her lab coat. She sinks down into the chair beside his bed. He lets her do it for a while, as long as it takes to muster the energy to speak again. 

“Hey,” he says, as loudly as he can. “Hey-- s’all right. S’okay.” 

She looks up at him. He feels sorry for putting her through this. She’s stopped bawling, but her eyes are puffy and red. 

He takes a moment to survey himself, as clearly as he can in this haze. No catheter-- good. Blood loss decreases urine output, so she probably hadn't found it necessary. He's been changed into a gown, but there's still residual blood crusted on him. That might have hidden the more telling marks from what Slade's... done, and maybe she'd been too busy putting him back together to notice.

Time to put out the feelers.

Feelers.

Hah, that's funny. He knows he's on painkillers, a lot of them, because otherwise he'd be feeling _something_.

He needs to think as logically as he can.

"What's the damage?" he says.

"You were in hypovolemic shock. Going into on Stage 4."

"Yeah," he says. "I thought I was a goner."

She doesn't look amused.

"How did this happen?"

"... Car crash."

They don't have to know that he caused it.

He hopes that Slade didn't survive after all. He hopes it. He really, really does.

"I wondered," she says. "Normally there's severe bruising from the seat belt, but with your blood loss..."

Bruises are a result of internal hemorrhage, blood that gets trapped in the tissue and oxidizes.

He'd been bleeding so much, and from so many places--

It didn't really matter.

He looks down. His arm is in a sling. He can't see his foot but there's a lump there, at the end of the bed.

"Broken bones?"

"Dislocated shoulder, simple fracture of your fibula. You're lucky you don't need surgery right now."

He still might, depending on how things heal. Explaining that will be a fun time for all involved.

"I figured," he says. "Was hard to run. Couldn't swim."

"With the inhalation of the water, we'll have to watch for respiratory issues. And you'll be on a strong antibiotic regimen. That water's filthy."

Antibiotics-- good. Depending on what she prescribes him, it might also work against any potential... infections... Slade may have given him. He doesn't think he has anything-- Slade wasn't stupid enough to carry around diseases, but there's never certainties. If there's one thing he's learned, it's that.

"Dick," she says, and from her tone, he knows what's coming.

She must have noticed. He'd been delusional to hope otherwise. There's marks on him that can't be explained in any other way than coming from the most disgusting things Slade has done.

"No," he says anyway. "It didn't happen."

She reaches out, smooths the blanket covering him. It's heavy and secure.

"... Do you need to be screened?"

"Probably a good idea," he says, deliberately misunderstanding. "Water's nasty." 

She inhales, breath catching as she does. If he’s not careful, he’ll make her cry again, and he doesn’t want that. Still, he has to be clear.

“Don’t tell Bruce. _Nothing happened_."

"He knows about the obvious things already," she says. "I kicked him out -- he was hysterical."

"Nothing for him to know but the obvious."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he says, "to both."

Nothing happened. And if, on the smallest chance, something like that _did_ happen-- then Bruce sure as hell can't know about it.

“... It’s your medical information,” she says. “You're old enough now to... make some decisions for yourself. If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

"I definitely don't want you to." 

And is he back in the normal world of sane and righteous human beings, where his wishes actually matter?

"Alright," she says. "Now, if you're comfortable with it, I’m going to get Bruce.” 

“ _Don’t tell him_.” 

“I won’t,” she says, “but he needs to be here. And you need him here, too.” 

But Bruce will condemn him if he knows the truth.

He has to keep his mouth shut.

Leslie leaves, and someone else comes in, but it’s not Slade.

“Dick,” Bruce says. His voice is trembling. Dick doesn’t have the bravery to look up. His father comes into view and sits in the chair. He hasn’t changed out of the Batsuit except to remove his cowl and gloves. He’s pale, and dried blood is streaked all over his face and hands.

… He must be really distraught, if he hasn't even bothered to shower.

“You’re going to be okay,” he says. “We’re going to get you everything you need.”

“... That’s nice.” He realizes that it must have sounded sarcastic. “Sorry. I'm on a lot of painkillers, I think.”

Bruce reaches out to his right arm-- the one not currently in a sling. 

“I want to kill him,” Bruce says. “This isn’t the time to be discussing it with you, but I can’t help it. I want to _kill_ him.” 

“Don’t do that. It's not worth it.”

Even through the haze of analgesia he knows that there can't be anything but this. This false truth, that he's only as injured as Bruce is already aware. Even if-- even if there's a tiny part that wants to say it, he can’t tell him. He really can’t. He can’t mention all the times Slade had forced his way inside, hollowed him out, ruined his body and mind and soul. 

If Bruce is this upset right now, then what would he be like if he found out about all the rest? 

It can’t happen. 

Dick won’t let himself be the reason that Bruce breaks. 

“You're definitely worth it,” Bruce says, and his hand keeps stroking Dick’s where it lies on the pillow. He can’t feel any pain from the lacerations on his hand, just the gentle pressure of Bruce's fingertips.

“I'm really not,” he insists. “I went along with him.” 

“No matter what he made you do,” Bruce says, “I’ll always love you. There’s nothing that could change that.” 

Slade hadn’t made him crash the car. It had been an active choice on his part.

And he’d survived. If one survives something, or someone, it must by necessity of the definition be a thing that is _done_ , locked away in the past-- something easy. Besides, people live their lives based upon their beliefs and ideas, but… nothing that exists as a thought can be definitively said to be real. 

So is all that he’s experienced even that horrible, after all? 

“Two percent of my life,” he says.

“... Dick?” 

“That’s how long I was with him. Two percent. It feels like longer.”

He’s fourteen, which is an objectively young age, and yet his life seems to unfold before him like a book with countless pages, flipping through from scene to scene and never coming to a close. 

It really would have been fine if he’d died. It would have been a nice finale. The hero is raised, saves others, gets captured, and dies while defiant to the end. Not a children’s storybook tale, but so _beautiful_. 

He’s lived such a full life, and he’s been blessed with many people. His parents, and Bruce and Alfred, and his team, and the Justice League, and--

Most people live to be seventy, eighty years old and never experience so much love. 

“Hey Bruce,” he says.

“... Yeah, chum?”

Still that broken voice.

“I’m alive, right?” 

“... Yes,” and there’s a gasp. Bruce sounds like he’s been choked, too. “Yes, you are.” 

* * *

“I lied,” Dick says to Jason the next morning, once Bruce has gone to work and Tim’s left for school. They hadn’t wanted to go, but appearances still took precedence. Before that, they’d gone over the plans for tonight. 

Dick’s permitted to _come along_ but is to avoid confrontation if at all possible. As if. Bruce and Jason are supposed to dive into the fray, while Tim maintains cover. It’s classic, playing to their strengths (and current, supposed weaknesses). 

“Huh?” 

“I lied about the time. It’s not at 9 PM. It’s at 7.” 

They’re in the kitchen again, a place that has come to be a strange land for Dick. He can’t remember the last time he ate anything more substantial than a granola bar. Meanwhile, Jason has created himself a BLT and is chomping away. 

He hasn’t tried to get Dick to eat anything. He’s thankful. There’s not the lingering stares Alfred gives, or the obvious concern from Bruce, or the antics Tim had resorted to with the pie. 

“Smart,” Jason says. “That way B and Replacement won’t be there to fuck things up.” 

Everyone will get there early, observe, and settle into position. It’s what they do, for things like this. Bruce and Tim should arrive soon after they kill Slade and his men. It’s perfect. No one will be able to stop them.

He doesn’t know what he’d do if someone _did_ try to stop him. 

“We’ll tell him we arrived early to settle in. It’s not a lie.” 

Dick wouldn’t care even if it were. Right now, like this, he’ll do anything. It’s just like it had been when he was 14 and in Slade’s clutches himself. Consequences of actions don’t matter, because living in and reacting to the present moment is all that keeps you alive.

Jason finishes his sandwich with ridiculous speed, and leads the way to his room. As they walk, Dick asks, “Are you sure you’ll be able to get him from that rooftop?” 

“It’s barely 300 yards,” Jason says. “If I can’t get that shot I need to walk off a cliff. It’s _nothing_.”

“It’s a fifth of a mile.”

They enter his room, and Jason heads for one of the weapons cases. “That’s baby steps in the sniping world.”

“I know,” Dick says. “But… it needs to go perfectly.”

“Trust me, if there’s anything I’m _good_ at, it’s killing people. Just ask Bruce.” 

Jason shows him a shotgun. 12 gauge, pump action. It’s accompanied by a _lot_ of 00 magnum buckshot. It feels overkill. 

“You’re not coming with me unless you take it,” Jason says. “It’s for my peace of mind. Since you’re a cripple.”

“A shotgun isn’t very practical when we’re _sniping_ ,” Dick replies.

“But it is very fuckin’ practical when you get ambushed by a bunch of assholes.”

“Do you think that’s going to happen?”

“The only way you stay alive is by _expecting_ it to happen.”

That’s true. Dick and Tim and Bruce have all practiced the same hypervigilance, except they’ve always gone about it in non-lethal ways.

“I don’t give a fuck who they are,” Jason elaborates. “It’ll waste them. Get them in the legs with this and they will be Lieutenant fuckin’ Dan. Except not, because I’ll kill them afterward.” 

“No medevac,” Dick clarifies.

“No fuckin’ medevac. You see so much as a goddamn slingshot, you _shoot_.”

Dick thinks of Slade’s men. He didn’t go for those who’d barely dipped a toe into the life of crime and perversion. No, he wanted the ones who’d become accustomed to it. 

Those men had heard him screaming and struggling. They’d watched Slade hit him and drug him and they’d done it themselves, too. They’d stood by as he performed vile acts and forced Dick to do even worse. They’d gone along with everything. So morally bankrupt.

He finds that he really, really doesn't care about them, especially now that they stand between him and Damian. 

“Alright,” he says. “Your turf, your rules.”

“Imma ask one last time. Are you sure you’re good with this?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been of anything.”

Jason nods. He doesn’t question him any more. It’s nice, that someone still trusts him to know what he thinks and feels. 

“I still maintain that it’s fuckin’ stupid for them to do this at _seven in the evening._ Who does that? Why not midnight? Or later?”

“Slade values convenience,” he says. “This way he can just wait for him to get off work, walk up, and kill him in the parking garage. Open access and open escape. It’s his thing.”

“Arrogant,” Jason says. “Intelligent, but arrogant.” 

“... Do you think he’s going to bring Damian?” 

“You’d know the answer better than I would.” 

"He brought me along to 'train' me. I guess it'll be the same with Dami."

He flops down onto Jason’s bed. It smells like him, gunpowder and evergreen. He stares up at the ceiling and--

 _No_.

He doesn’t need to do that.

“Hey,” he says, “distract me. If you don’t I think I’m gonna freak out again.”

Jason gives him a short smile, and then slings himself onto the couch that’s across from the bed. It’s hard to see his face from this angle, and Dick finds that he’s closing his eyes. 

“... Have I told you the legend of the Gotham City Goat Man?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, so, listen. Way back in the day, _way way_ back, like twenty years ago--”

“Ancient history,” Dick says.

“Shut _up._ So there was this dude and he got it into his head that he wanted to set up shop on this abandoned plot of land out between the railroad tracks and the west branch of the river. Over there past exit 13 of the beltway, near that shitty little park no one ever goes to.”

“Misty Creek Park,” Dick clarifies. It _is_ actually a shitty park; Jason’s not wrong. 

“ _Stop interrupting_.”

“I’m adding pertinent details.”

“It’s _my_ story and if I want to be vague as fuck, let me. It adds to the mystique.”

Dick actually laughs. Jason is good at this, the distraction. He’s glad he asked for it. 

“Fine, no more interruptions, I promise.”

He feels rather than sees Jason’s suspicious look. 

“Uh-huh,” he says. “ _Any_ fuckinway, Mr. Dude takes this shitty little bumper pull camper and somehow manages to get it onto the land _across the train tracks_ and between the river. But nobody knows how, because it’s such a huge berm on both sides for miles. And the woods are thick.”

Then he puts on one of his theatrical voices, and intones, “Some say that he floated it down the river on a barge, and pushed it off onto the riverbank... but I say those people are dumb as fuck.” For that last part he’d broken out of the voice and reverted to his own accent. Dick laughs again. 

“And that’s when the _goats_ appeared...”

* * *

“Hey,” Jason snaps to him, “stop fidgeting and _keep watch_.” 

It’s 6:30 in the evening, and he’s flat on his belly on the rooftop of the building with the best vantage of the parking garage. He’s shouldered up against his rifle, a Remington 700PSS, chambered in .308 Win. 

“Slade loved his Blaser R93,” Dick had said, upon seeing Jason pull out the Remington. “.338 LM.” 

“That’s fucking stupid,” Jason said. “There’s no reason to use that when there’s more widely available rounds and less distinctive rifles.”

“He said it was great for hunting big game,” Dick replied.

“We’re not in goddamn _Alaska_ ,” he’d retorted, “and we are most definitely not in fucking Africa. The biggest game we’re gonna find in Gotham are those fat fucks at the country buffet.”

It was mean, but it had made Dick laugh again, anyway. Jason manages it somehow. He feels guilty that he’s even able to smile when Damian’s not back yet, but it won’t be an issue for much longer. 

It’s almost time. 

The afternoon sunlight glints off the windows of the building across from them. Jason’s found a place in the lengthening shadows, and Dick’s near him, the massive spotting scope strange as it squats low on its tripod. Slade had made him learn the basics, but he’s never directed shots or called out the numbers before. 

Jason’s right; it’s a short distance, and someone with his experience could probably do it with iron sights. But they’re not taking any chances. Combined, he and Jason are equipped with what’s likely more than $10,000 of optics. 

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be sorry; just fucking _watch_ for me.” 

They sit and they wait. “Hurry up and wait,” Jason had called it. It’s an accurate description.

His breathing syncopates as a group of people walk up. Slade, so recognizable. So obvious to him. He'll never forget that face.

And there's another-- a boy wearing a baseball hat and a big jacket.

If he didn’t have this scope, he wouldn’t know. Damian doesn’t wear such things. He deems them pedestrian. But right now he is, and it’s him. 

It’s his little brother.

It’s his _son_. 

“They’re here,” he says. “They’re fucking _here_.” 

“Stay calm,” says Jason, even and steady, and how is he able to be like that when the stakes are so high? When a single missed shot might be _it_? 

They’re in range for grappling. Slade wouldn’t be able to escape anyway, even if he does realize that they’re here. Dick knows that. But that doesn’t help with the irrational fear-- the infinite procession of _what if_ s. What if Slade turns and sees the glint of the scope? No, that’s impossible; Jason knows what he’s doing, and they’ve chosen a correct spot. What if there are people watching _them_? No, no, no. They’ve thought about that too. This is Jason’s territory, what he does best, and he _knows_.

It’s so hard to put his trust in someone else. 

He’s spiraling, and he can’t stop it.

The world is to him like an endless darkness that swallows everything, including people’s hearts. Even when operating with the best of intentions, humans often become as twisted as the strands of a steel cable, and just as hard. Hands reaching out to each other in that darkness become devoured or lost; no eyes can penetrate the gloom. And it makes him wonder-- how is he any different? There's no real reason that he should avoid that fate of absorption. In this world, no one escapes the goddamn taint.

No matter how ‘special’ someone is, how beloved or sainted or knightly, the shadow prevails. 

Damian had just been _born_ when he’d been suffering. A little baby, on the other side of the world, not knowing that one day he and Dick would become family. His mother, probably ignoring him and foisting him off onto a nursemaid, as Dick laid in a sweltering room while the ceiling spun and he died, died, died.

And now it’s his sin, too, peering through this scope from a great distance as if he’s a god, determining who lives and who dies.

“Why do you choose to be a hero,” M’gann had asked one day, shortly after they’d met, “when you have no powers?”

He’d replied with the typical pageantry-- it was the right thing, and if he had the capability, then he’d do anything he could to help people. But even then, it had held a sort of false weight. He’d known he was only repeating Bruce’s philosophy. 

“Dickface,” someone says.

He thinks it’s possible that he does have his own answer now. Even if it’s absurdly selfish, and it doesn’t validate anyone but himself--

He’s doing this because it’s fulfilling his own objectives. He cares for Damian, more than anything, and he’s doing whatever he can to save him. 

Does he need any other reason for his actions? Did they need to be approved by others? The older he’s become, the more he’s realized that countless lives are spent jumping through absolutely useless hurdles. 

The moment has come.

“ _Listen to me_.” 

He has to ignore the endlessly distracting hypotheticals. All he needs to do is keep on-- keep on breathing, keep on stepping into the future, no matter who he has to trample to get to that fabled land of no return.

Damian has to come back. If he doesn’t-- if this fails--

He’s going to kill himself.

It’s as sure as a swift east wind, chilling and foreboding. 

“Hey, Dick, _listen_. This is important.” 

He will jump right off the side of this building, and this time he won’t _fail_. Ten years in the making and he’ll have it _count_. He’ll feel sorry for Jason, having to watch it, and of course TIm and Bruce will sigh and say it was a tragedy, but really-- _really_ \--

There’s a gunshot. Loud, just a few feet away. Jason’s done it without his help. 

He’s back, staring through the scope. Slade’s body drops to the ground. It's a straight headshot.

“Hit,” he says. “ _Hit_.” 

Damian’s well-trained, and has astounding reflexes. As soon as the report from the gunshot reaches him, he drops to the ground and crawls behind a pylon. He’s no longer in sight. Dick panics momentarily but then sees that the rest of the thugs are scattering away. None of them have made a lunge for Damian. 

They’re not so dedicated once their leader’s brains are blown across the nearest car. 

Shot after shot and they drop like they’ve had their tendons cut. One, two, three, four--

“Eh,” Jason says, “the other two can escape as a warning to their little friends. Now let’s _go_.” 

It’s lucky that he can grapple on autopilot at this point. They get to the parking garage in no time at all, and as soon as he hits the ground, he’s stumbling off to Damian.

His damn foot is still fucked up.

Doesn’t matter.

It’s only been a matter of half a minute since Jason had begun to fire, and Damian’s still in the perfect position for defending from sniper fire-- on the ground, hands over head, as low a profile as he can make, behind cover that protects from the original direction of fire.

“We’ve got you,” he says. “We’ve _got_ you.”

Damian looks up at him, dazed, and then Jason’s grabbing the boy by the arm and tucking him against his body. “Let’s fucking _go_ ,” he orders, “before people start coming.” 

He grapples away to the roof they’d sniped from, still clutching Damian with one arm, and Dick follows. 

“B,” Jason says, over the radio, once they’ve landed, “we have him.”

Dick scrambles over to Damian, who’s still wide-eyed and silent. He seems so small like this, so fragile. He’s bigger than Dick had been at fourteen, but-- but-- _he’s a child_. 

“Are you okay?” he says. “Tell me you’re okay.”

Damian doesn’t reply. In the background, Jason’s continuing the discussion with Bruce but the words mean nothing to him. It’s just a jumble of white noise.

“Answer me!” 

“You came,” Damian says eventually, and Dick almost collapses with relief at hearing his voice.

“Of course I did. Now are you _okay_?”

“He told me that you would not come.”

“God, Damian, tell me if you’re okay!”

“... I am entirely unharmed.”

He says it like it’s an evil thing. Dick falls to his knees and pulls the boy against his chest. He’s here. He’s really here. 

This has actually happened.

His hands cup the back of Damian’s head and then he’s pressing kisses against his hair, desperate and frantic. He feels like he can’t hold him tight enough. 

“I am _never_ letting you out of my sight again,” he says.

Then, so uncharacteristically, Damian wraps his arms around him and squeezes back. 

“I do not believe that I would be opposed,” he says. He buries his face into Dick’s shoulder, and he feels wetness on his shirt. He’s crying. Damian, so unbreakable, is _crying_. 

Dick realizes he’s crying too, but it’s strange, because he’s happy. He’s so happy he feels like he could burst.

“I love you,” he murmurs. “I love you so fucking much.”

And, miraculously, he hears, muffled against his chest, a small voice that says, “I love you, too.”

* * *

He doesn’t know exactly how they got back to the Cave.

For sure it had involved copious prodding and cussing on Jason’s part, who’d spat out things like, “Get the fuck moving!” and, “There’ll be time for this bullshit later!” Besides that, all that Dick remembers are flashes of Jason stuffing the firearms back into their disguised guitar case, and him urging them down the stairs while Dick refused to let go of Damian’s hand, and then being shoved into the nondescript vehicle they’d driven to the site. Jason had taken the wheel while screaming at them to do up their seat belts.

 _Seat belt safety_. Of all things.

So now they’re back home, and people are talking, and he’s staring off into the air. There’s Tim, dear Tim, right in front of him, and he looks so worried. He’s been that way a lot recently, and-- why? Jason’s to his left side, and Bruce is at the right. 

He’d feel surrounded if he didn’t trust them all so damn much.

“Of course he’s fucking _in shock_ ,” Jason says. “Both of you bitches would be the same.” 

If Bruce has any objection to being called a bitch, he doesn’t voice it. A blanket is tucked over Dick’s shoulders, and he sinks into it. 

“Stop,” he says. “Don’t argue.” 

They do stop, and he feels immense pressure under their combined gazes. He should have remained silent. 

“Hey,” Jason says, and both his hands are spanning Dick’s face, from the bottom of his jaw up past his temples. The warmth jerks him back to the real world for a minute, and he realizes with abrupt fear that Damian’s not in his arms any more. Damian’s not in _sight_.

“He’s with Leslie,” Tim says, as if he’s read his mind. Then he turns away, rummaging through one of the supply cabinets. 

“He’s not hurt,” Dick says. “He can’t be hurt.” 

“It’s a precaution,” comes Bruce’s voice. 

“No,” and now he’s sobbing, but it’s out of fear instead of joy. “He didn’t _fight_ , he shouldn’t be hurt.” 

“Go to Damian,” Jason commands Bruce. “He needs someone, and Sparky here isn’t capable right now.”

Dick blinks up at him through the tears. “... Who’s Sparky?”

“My point exactly.” 

Bruce walks away, towards the examination room. Tim follows, with another blanket in his arms. Dick raises a hand after them, but Jason grabs it and holds it instead.

“You’re gonna be fine, you stupid fuckin' idiot. And that brat’s gonna be fine, too.” 

When it’s said in that voice, so clear and nailed down with conviction, it manages to get through his head.

“You sure?” 

“Yeah,” Jason says, and then he’s hugging him, arms wrapping around and pulling him to his chest the way Dick had done with Damian. “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

* * *

The next day and things have returned to a false normality.

Tim’s at school again. Jason’s in the kitchen with Alfred. Dick and Bruce sit outside on the patio. It’s a nice spring day; the sun is mellow and darts behind the clouds, but it’s warm enough to forgo jackets.The Bartlett pears have bloomed, and some of their white blossoms scatter in the breeze. The forsythia along the walkway is yellow and bright, accompanied by the jonquils that have been there for years and years. 

Damian’s out in the yard beyond. Titus lopes around him like the giant dope he is. He and Damian are playing catch. It doesn’t work well, because the dog isn’t very smart and forgets half the time to return with his toys. It still seems to make Damian happy, and that’s all that matters.

“If you had told me--” Bruce starts, then trails off. 

“If I’d told you I was going with Jason to kill him, you’d have stopped us. Don’t lie.” 

“... No,” Bruce says. He’s digging into the wood of the patio table with his nails, which are short and stubby, and not the manicured perfection expected from a billionaire fop.

Since when did he start biting them?

Bruce has reacted surprisingly well to their little killing spree, at least to Dick’s knowledge. It's possible that he and Jason could have had a knock-out, drag-down brawl overnight, but he’d been too exhausted to know, and this morning, at the breakfast table, Dick had actually bothered to eat half a muffin. He thinks no one had dared argue because of that. They didn’t want to disrupt his precious _eating habits_. Right now Jason and Alfred are probably concocting something else in an attempt to revive his appetite.

“No,” Bruce repeats. “I’m talking about _before_.” 

"I told you why I didn’t. I didn't want you to kill him."

"What I would have done wasn't your responsibility to consider."

"You're not even denying it."

"No," Bruce says, "I'm not, and I can't."

"Why? After Jason, you were upset, but you never…"

"There are things worse than dying," Bruce says. It makes Dick uncomfortable. It's like he knows about all the times he'd prayed for it to stop and thought desperately that he'd do anything. Or do nothing. 

When Slade had asked him if he'd wanted to live, hands wrapped around his neck like he was a judge of life itself, Dick hadn't known the answer. And when he'd woken up, throat crushed and voice ruined and eyes shot through with burst veins, he'd thought that maybe, he hadn’t wanted to open his eyes again after all.

“You love me more,” Dick says. “You’ve always loved me more than you love them.” 

He doesn’t mean for it to come out in such an accusatory way, but it does, and Bruce continues picking at the table. 

"God, Dick, do you think I'm that way on purpose?"

Dick doesn’t know what to say. 

"You came along when I was still young-- and you were so open, and affectionate, and I _chose_ you…"

It's rare that Bruce doesn't finish a sentence. He must be selecting his words carefully.

“Then Jason came, and Tim, and Damian, and with each of them it was less and less of a choice. I never connected with any of them like I did with you."

He wants to condemn him. Wants to tell him that that's awful, that there's no way that Dick is more worthy of love than Jason or Tim or Damian. 

But he understands. Damian is so precious to him, precious in a way that's unique and special. Dick wants to protect him forever, wrap him up in his arms and never let him go. With everyone else it's love, yes, but not that overwhelming, near-smothering affection. When he thinks, really thinks, about how much Damian means to him, he has to stop himself from tearing up. 

"I never wanted to ration my love," Bruce continues. "I'm sorry to put you in this position, but, Dick, _you're my son_."

It’s so uncomfortable to be in this situation that he simultaneously judges and yet completely comprehends. He doesn’t want to be that type of person. He doesn’t want to play favorites.

But he does, and he can’t help it. 

Bruce can’t help it either.

“I get it,” he says, and it’s like the massive gulf between them has shortened a bit. “Is that what it’s like, being a father?” 

“I think you already know,” Bruce says. “Terrifying, isn’t it?” 

And it is. But watching Damian with Titus, and how the dog chases after that stupid squeaking toy which ruins the peace of the entire household early on weekend mornings--

That’s worth it. 

It’s worth everything. 

And though it hurts-- it still hurts so badly-- this is something to live for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worked really, really hard on this, so I'd love to hear what you think! Comments make my day. I really do smile when I read each one. 💖


	4. For The Love Of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian's safely back, and Dick tries to ride the waves of the fake normality they've returned to.

  
Damian comes in from playing with Titus after several hours. Dick’s waiting for him in the kitchen, has been since Bruce reluctantly left to work in the home office.

Damian doesn’t usually spend so much time outside-- the spring pollen irritates him terribly. Several times he’s insisted to Dick that the desert is better simply because at no point of the year are there “elements of plant copulation suspended in the air”; he sniffles and coughs and gets watery eyes and despite Damian’s irritation Dick has always found it more than a little bit adorable. 

It’s convenient for Damian, though, because Dick can’t tell if he was out there surreptitiously crying, or if he’d simply been having his normal, and hated, reaction to springtime’s blossoms and blooms.

“How's Titus?” he says. It’s both an awkward and stupid question, because the dog is right outside, currently suspended in the dog hammock Damian had made Bruce install for him. 

(It had been hysterical, watching Bruce drill pilot holes into a tree at Damian’s command. He had vetoed the tested height several times, forcing Bruce to drill new holes up and down like a woodpecker. Bruce had asked if it would be so bad to have the hammock two inches higher than planned; Damian then gave him a scandalized look and asked if he _wanted_ Titus to break a leg. Bruce had sighed and kept drilling.)

“He has yet to comprehend the notion of object permanence,” Damian replies, going to the sink to wash Titus’s slobber off. Jason and Alfred made brownies earlier, and Damian grabs one out of the china storage container on the counter. Then he holds the container out to Dick, clearly wanting him to take one, and Dick does. Maybe he can crumble some up and hide it in his pocket to look like he’s eaten it.

It’s almost dinnertime, and all Dick has had today is that little half of muffin. The thought of eating anything more than that makes him sick. Alfred’s been making a great deal of sweets and baked goods recently, probably because that usually entices Dick’s appetite, but these past few weeks… 

No.

“Listen,” Dick says.

“My ears are, as they say, ‘wide open’.” 

This is it. He’s got to just take the plunge. 

“Damian,” he says, “I know you talked with Leslie last night.”

“Your powers of observation continue to astound,” Damian says, a little brattily, and Dick doesn’t care because at least he’s replied instead shutting down the way he himself always did after-- everything.

“And-- it’s your privacy, it’s your information, but--” 

“Richard.”

“Maybe there was something, you know, that you didn’t want to say to her in person--”

“Rich-ard.” 

“You can write it on a piece of paper and give it to her,” he says. “None of us have to know if you don’t--” 

“Richard, _nothing was done to me_.” 

“Are you sure.” 

“I believe that I would be aware of such activities had they occurred.” 

“But he--” 

He feels so helpless. Poor Damian. He’s gone over this before already, last night with Leslie and no doubt also with Bruce, and here Dick is badgering him, but--

Even the thought. Just a single _thought_ of that man, and that bed, and _Damian_ \--

Fucking Christ. 

He puts his hand over his mouth and hopes Damian doesn’t pay too much attention to the way he’s swallowing the saliva that always wells up when he’s nauseated. His other hand clutches the brownie and mashes it into one big ball of sugar. 

“He did not drug me, nor did his servants. If anything, I was treated as a privileged guest.” 

“He didn’t--” 

“No. I was what one might term ‘docile’.”

“That’s why he was terrible to _me_ , because I wasn’t,” Dick says, dreamily, as if he’s recalling the details of a movie from long ago. When he twisted and kicked and attempted to bite-- that was when he got hurt the most. Slade had a horrible temper, and he knew how to inflict pain in _so many ways_.

Fuck.

This is a conversation about _Damian’s_ experience and _Damian’s_ hardship and Dick can’t even keep his focus for five fucking minutes.

“I… suspected as much, and thus I did not attempt to do so.” 

They’d been talking about something in specific. Something important. Drugging? 

“... Can you repeat that?” 

“When I was with him, I did not attempt to resist or escape.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Dick says, and it’s a long sigh of relief. 

Damian’s staring at him with apprehension.

“I am ashamed of my actions.” 

“What? No, no--” 

“I feared what he would do to me, and so I was _obedient_ and _complicit_ \--” 

Dick grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. It’s probably rougher than it should be, but Damian’s tough-- and, god-- Damian’s _tough_ , how can he--

“I don’t give a damn what you did or didn’t do,” he says, all in a rush, as if the words can’t be said quickly or forcefully enough. “It doesn’t _matter_.” 

“But I--” 

“You’re safe, and you’re with us, and with me, and, god, _I don’t care_ except for that.” 

“I gave way to my cowardly impulses.” 

“I’m glad!” 

“... Do you not consider my actions to be dishonorable?” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dick says, and suddenly he empathizes with Bruce, the way he must feel when Dick says something ‘self-degrading’. “No, Dami, _no_.” 

“But you did not surrender.” 

Is this the example he’s thrown from his own dark shadow? This? That _not giving in_ is the final goal, even to the end of personhood, of dignity, of existence? 

“And _look at me_ ,” he says. Despite all his effort-- he can’t keep it together, not when Damian is looking like this, asking questions like _this_. “Look at what it’s done to me, Dami, and tell me I made the right choice.” 

And there he goes again, bringing himself and his experiences into this when it’s supposed to be solely focused on Damian. He’s being self-centered even when he’s trying so hard _not_ to be.

Damian hasn’t said anything. Is this such a hard question? It should be so obvious; he must always save himself. Anything else-- that heroic, self-sacrificing bullshit-- it doesn’t belong with Damian. He won’t allow it. 

“I would have done everything he wanted,” he says. “It was only a matter of time. You don’t know what I _did_. I’d already given in. There was no point in resisting. It just made things-- so much worse.” 

And what is there to say to that?

“When I was young,” Damian says, firm, as if to catch his attention, and there’s that _when I was young_ again, as if Damian’s not _still_ young, as if he’s not just twelve and barely blinking at the world.

Dick sits and waits.

“When I was young, I had quite the fascination with Lawrence of Arabia.” 

“... the movie by David Lean?” 

“He was a real person as well,” Damian says, which Dick does know, but only images of the movie pop up into his mind. “Grandfather met him in passing, once.” 

Ra's has met _everyone_ in passing. It comes with being five centuries old.

“After the First World War ended, he rejoined the ranks of the British army in anonymity, seeking to escape his great deeds and infamy.”

This needs to have some sort of point, some sort of relevance, or he’ll have to interrupt. He’ll let Damian deflect, to a certain extent, but there’s time to talk about things like this later. 

“His work _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ , which details the events of the Arab Revolt, is seminal and greatly renowned, yet I find his post-war account to be riveting as well.” 

“... What about it, Dami?” 

“In it, he remarks upon the strengthless mentalities of the trainees. He states,

‘Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand. When a plane shoots downward out of control, its crew cramp themselves fearfully into their seats for minutes like years, expecting the crash. The smoothness of that dive continues to their graves. Only for the survivors is there after-pain.’

I find it to be applicable to what has happened-- both currently, and in your past.” 

Dick takes more than a few seconds to process it. Mostly he’s impressed that Damian repeated such a long passage verbatim, but that’s not a surprise. Damian’s smart, so smart, infinitely smarter than Dick had been when in Slade’s custody.

And so he tries to work his brain around what Damian said, and finally, he replies, “It’s not strength, Dami. It’s not. It’s just-- like you said, surviving.” 

Damian, with his too-wise green eyes, is looking at him so solemnly. 

“Surviving,” he says, “ _is_ that strength.” 

* * *

“I did some research on Rose Wayne,” Tim says out of the blue the next morning. 

“What?” 

“The lady whose rooms you were in.” 

“Ah,” Dick says. He hasn’t thought about it much-- the idea of having ruined his sanctuary in a fit of panic is a bit much to reconcile, right now, even though it wasn’t as if he’d _chosen_ to do it. 

“She was an interesting person,” Tim continues. “She wrote some opinion articles for _Gotham Women’s Weekly_. I found them on microfiche.” 

Why is Tim even mentioning this?

“Did you,” Dick says. “That’s great.” 

Tim gives him a side-eye from the espresso machine. “Yeah, it _is_ great. She had some strong words to say about social standards for beauty and appearance.” 

Dick stirs the yogurt that Alfred had prepared for him. Greek, plain, full fat, with walnuts. It’s starting to get warm. He really doesn’t want to eat it. 

“In all the pictures I’ve seen of her, she was beautiful.” 

“Yeah,” Tim says, as if it’s obvious. “That was what was _expected_ of her.” Then, a complete non sequitur. “Do you want espresso?” 

“Huh?”

“Okay, let me ask it a different way. How many shots of espresso?” 

Dick thinks about it for a minute. 

“Three,” he says. “I have stuff I need to do today.” 

Tim rolls his eyes good-naturedly and begins tamping down the grounds into the portafilter. 

“Cream and chocolate chips?” 

“Yes, please.” 

“Rose was one of the first suffragettes in Gotham, actually.” 

“... She sounds like a cool lady,” Dick says. “I always wondered what she’d been like.” 

“Did you… go up there a lot? I didn’t even know those rooms existed.”

“That was the point,” Dick says, tempering his bitterness. It’s not Tim’s fault, or Jason’s. He lost his hiding place by his own doing.

“I’m guessing that it was a good retreat,” Tim says neutrally. 

“That was… the place I’d go. When everything got to be too much.”

“It still can be.”

“Not a very good hiding place if you and Jason both know about it.”

Tim quirks an eyebrow. 

“He’s not going to remember it. He was too freaked out on your behalf.”

“... He was calmer than me,” Dick says, and then realizes how little that means. 

“Trust me,” Tim says, “the only thing he was concentrating on was getting to you. He wouldn’t be able to find his way back there even if we left a trail of breadcrumbs for him.”

“It’s not like him to be unaware of his surroundings,” Dick says, for lack of anything else to say.

“He was freaking out more than I’ve ever seen him.”

“Okay,” Dick says, “that’s got to be an exaggeration. Remember the time he _tore the doors_ off of Bruce’s Mercedes?”

They’d had a screaming match of genuinely epic proportions-- Dick can’t even remember what it was about, because their incoherent rage itself washed away any meaningful topic of discussion. He and Bruce had yelled themselves literally hoarse, and, as he left for the garage, Jason had taken a moment to exact revenge on Bruce’s favorite daily driver. The four doors of the sedan had been found scattered throughout the garage, and the dealership mechanic who came to fix it had been genuinely impressed.

“I mean freaking out as in ‘worried’, not as in ‘angry’.”

“Oh.”

He hadn’t considered that as a possibility. He had never seen Jason actually _worried_ about something; he was too confident, too self-assured. He tended to express his emotions in exactly the same way regardless of what he felt. He’d cuss up a storm, punch something, and then smoke a couple of cigarettes back to back. Which, thinking of--

“He quit smoking,” Dick says, “just because I can’t handle a little smoke, since _Slade_ , he had to--”

Tim interrupts him, gently, with a raised hand. “You mean because Slade smoked, and it reminds you of him.”

“... Yes.”

“And someone who _cares about you_ doesn’t want you to have to be reminded of it.”

“I guess.”

When it’s stated like that, it sounds so simple, so easy to explain. But what Tim doesn’t understand, can’t understand, is that Dick doesn’t deserve such accommodation. He’s a grown man; he shouldn’t need such pampering. 

“He really does care about you a lot,” Tim says. “Don’t take it for granted.”

And Dick doesn’t.

At least he thinks he doesn’t.

But then-- Jason has been here for him, been the most help out of everyone, probably. He hasn’t treated Dick like he’s a victim, or something that’ll break, or someone who doesn’t know how or what they feel. 

It makes him feel a little weird. Jason doesn’t _like_ people. That’s sort of his thing; he’s gruff and brusque and, for the most part, keeps to himself. Yet these past few weeks, he’s been at the Manor nearly every day, and he’s said more to Dick in that time span than he probably has to the rest of the world combined this year. 

And that behavior, so unexpected, has kept him from sinking down entirely into the mire of his life and memories.

Jason does need to be thanked.

It presents a problem. 

Dick hasn’t really had to _thank_ people in his life; it’s always been a basis of mutually assured respect and caretaking. Of course, there are the polite expressions of thanks when receiving gifts, and when someone does something nice, but when it comes to deep and life-saving gratitude… it’s always been something that he’s _shared_ with someone. It’s never been so unilateral, not even when Bruce had adopted him, because back then Bruce had needed him just as much as he’d needed Bruce. 

But without Jason, he wouldn’t have Damian back. Hell, he probably wouldn’t be stable enough to even _know_ if he were to get Damian back. He’d be in the corner of Rose’s rooms, not caring that they’d been discovered, sobbing into his knees and refusing to move. And that’s when they’d come to carry him away into the drugged land of false ataraxia, where he wouldn’t know anything at all. 

Yes, Jason needs to be thanked.

The problem is-- the problem is--

He only has one thing of worth, and he knows that’s not something Jason would want to trade.

They’re not really brothers, not in the sense that Tim is his _little brother_ , or Damian is his _son._ He never had that mentoring relationship with Jason, that sense of being idolized or looked up to. They’d been at odds from the moment they met and it took Jason _dying_ for Dick to realize what an idiot he’d been. He’d been older, more mature, from an infinitely better background, and yet he’d still chosen to fight back just as viciously, be just as vindictive and childish. 

It’s amazing Jason can stand to look at him, much less _help_ him the way he has. 

It’s not a small thing, killing someone, regardless of what Jason thinks. Purely from a strategic standpoint, he’d put himself at a huge risk going after Slade like that, with only Dick’s majorly malfunctioning self as backup. He hadn’t even thought, in his rush to get information, what might have happened if the man he’d seduced had been a little smarter, a little more savvy as to how intel was gathered. What if he’d told his higher-ups? What if he’d somehow managed to tell Slade directly? 

He can picture it. He knows exactly what the man would say. 

_Yeah, I had a great night. Pretty guy with blue, blue eyes and perfect black hair-- yeah, the body on him. Came on to me right then and there. And, god, that mouth_.

And when Slade heard that-- oh, he’d smile: that long slow movement that always crept across his face, starting with one corner of his mouth and then moving across until his lips curled in a parody of happiness.

Purely dumb fucking luck they hadn’t been ambushed. 

He owes Jason. He really does.

And he’s got to come up with some way to pay it back. 

* * *

This will be only the third time he’s left the Manor grounds since he was burned. The first-- to acquire information. He’ll never let Damian know about that. The second-- to _get_ Damian. That one’s fine, not a secret. And now-- 

“I suppose that he does merit some sort of thanks,” Damian says, when he tells him he’s going to Jason’s.

And then, half an hour later, he descends from his room with a drawing. It’s simple, sketched outlines, yet so lifelike regardless. In it, Jason’s leaning against Carlita, arms crossed and one leg kicked out. 

“You may inform him that this is a token of my gratitude,” he says. “I understand that he is infatuated with that gaudy vehicle.” 

Dick smiles at him and reaches out to ruffle his hair. It’s gotten a little shaggy, and it’s so damn cute because when he glowers, his bangs fall across his face and make him look more like the child he actually is. 

He’s not going to call because that will be awkward. Trying to explain that he’s coming over to _thank_ him? Jason would probably laugh him off the phone. 

“He’ll love it,” Dick says, and then he goes to get dressed. He empathizes with Tim a bit while he tries to find something to wear. Whenever Tim enters his days-long tunnels of research for cases, he dresses with absolutely zero regard for appearance, and when he’s done it’s obvious because he’s put back on what he terms to be ‘actual human clothing’. 

Time for Dick to transition to ‘actual human clothing’, too.

He’s lost weight. He knows it. He doesn’t have to step on a scale. It’s a simple equation: if calories ingested are fewer than calories exerted, weight loss results. 

So when he pulls on a pair of jeans and they’re a couple inches loose in the waist-- well, that’s what belts are for. He always wears belts anyway, a habit drilled into him from years of wearing uniforms of one variety of another, and it’s just a few holes tighter. No big deal. The sweater he pulls on over his undershirt is the same. Normally it’s fashionably snug in the torso. Now, it’s a little baggy.

Whatever. 

He takes a car-- his left foot isn’t in the shape to be supporting the weight of a motorcycle yet. The Manor is situated a bit away from the limits of Gotham City proper, and it takes half an hour to arrive. He stops at a florist along the way and picks out a potted plant, the same kind his mother had always managed to keep alive even in the hectic environment of their little circus trailer. 

Jason’s paranoia has gotten better over the past few years. He still has his hideouts, which he switches from time to time, but he maintains a little brownstone townhome too, which is actually in a nice part of the city and surprisingly well-kept and decorated.

Dick thinks Alfred had something to do with it. He’d probably forced Jason to go house shopping with him. He’d done the same with Dick when he joined the police academy. _All_ apartments were lacking compared to the Manor, but Alfred had made it his mission to point out each and every flaw as if they were inspecting a military barracks for cleanliness. Granted, it had led to Dick finding what was probably the best and least sketchy apartment in Bludhaven, which was indeed an accomplishment, but it had still left him with no small amount of embarrassment for the realtors who’d shown them prospective places. 

Dick pulls up curbside and gets out, plant in one hand. Then he’s up the stairs and staring at Jason’s front door. Someone --again, probably Alfred-- has put down a welcome mat that has happy little birds hopping around on it. It’s so contrary to Jason’s personality that it comes all the way around from kitschy to amusing. 

He knocks-- shave and a haircut, two bits. He feels odd, standing out here like this, mid-morning, when most people are at work or school. How long has his life been this… irregular?

He knocks again, wondering if he could get away with leaving the plant on the doorstep. But what if someone steals it? Do people steal plants? Every so often he sees stories in the news about how some villain cropped a sweet old lady’s irises and left her with a flower-bed of disappointment, or feuding neighbors whose war centers over what apple tree belongs to whom along a fenceline, but… actual potted plants? Do people steal _those_? And if they do, would they do it in this peaceful little neighborhood? It _is_ Gotham, but--

Abruptly the door opens, and he finds himself staring at Jason’s chest, their height difference accentuated by the doorstep. 

“What the fuck are you doing here this early.” 

This early. Not, what the fuck are you doing here _period_ , but: this early.

That’s got to be a good sign.

“Good morning, Vietnam,” he says in his best Robin Williams voice. “By the way, it’s 10 AM.” 

“Yeah, and it’s 2 AM somewhere else.” 

Nevertheless he steps back and lets Dick in. The interior of the house is spotless but manages to still look lived-in. 

"You look exhausted," Dick says. And he does. Jason is never particularly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but this morning he looks older than 21. He hasn't shaved and his hair is rumpled, and he's wearing a sleep shirt and boxers. 

"You woke me up," he says. 

"Sorry. I should have called but--"

"Just start the espresso machine," Jason says, and Dick moves over to it. He sets the pothos down on the counter as he does, and Jason stares at it.

“What is it for.” 

“The plant?” 

“Yes. Why is it here?”

Dick tries to make it sound humorous, as if this hadn’t been his actual best idea.

“They didn’t have ‘thank you for killing someone for me’ bouquets at the store, so I had to improvise.” 

“I didn’t do it for you,” Jason grumbles. 

Dick just stares at him.

“... Okay, that’s a lie, I _did_ do it for you, but not so that you’d get me a stupid plant.” 

“Damian also drew you something.” 

“Delightful,” Jason says, rolling the ‘l’ off his tongue. “What is it, me being crucified?” 

He pulls it out of his pants pocket. He feels guilty for having folded it up so it would fit, but-- it’s not as if Damian had deemed it one of his great works of art. It’s just a little sketch that Jason might disdain anyway. 

“He got Carlita’s badging right,” Jason says after a minute or two of study. “Can’t throw it away now. She would be offended.” 

He takes a magnet shaped like a cat and pins it to the fridge. The bottom curls up slightly from having been folded.

It looks natural there. 

This whole house looks natural. It’s as if Jason has decided to stop fleeing from place to place and-- to start to _live_. 

“... I never did ask you why you decided to go for a townhome instead of another apartment.”

“Alfred,” Jason says simply.

“What?”

“Alfred convinced me. He told me that there are many avenues of escape and that, since I’ll be spending more time here, I need to be able to ‘strategically remove myself’ at a moment’s notice.” 

“I think that was his way of telling you he likes the amount of windows.” 

“Yeah,” Jason says, “probably. Speaking of windows, where the fuck should this thing go?” 

“They’re pretty adaptable. Just pick a spot.” 

“You do know I don’t have a fuckin’ clue about plants.” 

“Yeah, I thought of that. It’s a pothos; they’re impossible to kill.” 

“I wonder what it would say to an M-14,” Jason mumbles, but he still sets it up onto the windowsill above the kitchen sink. The sunlight shines in merrily and accentuates the gold-striped leaves. 

“Alright, Plantita, don’t fuckin’ fall.” 

“You can’t name your car Carlita, and then _also_ have a plant named Plantita.” 

“Fuckin’ stop me.” 

There’s silence for a minute as the espresso machine steams and hisses. Dick feels Jason’s stare between his shoulder blades, and he grabs one of the demitasse cups off the drying rack to his right. He pours a shot and a half of espresso into the cup, then sprinkles it with a few marshmallows from the container next to the machine.

He turns around, hands shaking. Jason pretends not to notice when he reaches out to take the cup. 

“Thanks,” Jason says, leaning against the counter. “Now, not that I don’t appreciate the plant-- it’s a true blessing-- but something tells me you’re here for another reason.” 

This is it. The moment of truth. Suddenly all his carefully composed phrases have evaporated from his mind. 

“The plant… isn’t really a joke. I just couldn’t think of anything else. And you’ve done so much recently, and it’s not even your _job_ , we’ve never really even been that close, you stopped smoking just ‘cause I can’t control myself, and I mean-- I mean, you helped me get back Damian, and you _killed Slade_ , something I’ve been too much of a coward to ever do, and I…” 

He’s rapidly getting out of breath, and it seems like he still hasn’t conveyed what he _wants_ to say. Jason’s eyebrows are rising steadily higher and higher. He better cut it short before this turns into even more of a disaster.

“Anyway,” he says, feeling sweat start to trickle down his face, “it’s a thank you. For you. Because-- thank you.” 

“... You are the most awkward fuck I have ever seen,” is Jason’s reply. 

Dick stares at him.

“Like,” he continues, “everyone talks about how you’re the one with the best social skills, and blah blah blah, Mr. Congeniality, but here you are word vomiting all over yourself. You’re seriously the best we’ve got, but you don’t know that _thanking someone_ for _caring about you_ is fucking stupid?” 

“Uh,” Dick says. He doesn’t know if he should be embarrassed, outraged, or complimented. 

“Okay,” Jason says, and he’s snapping his fingers now, making a gesture that Dick doesn’t understand. “Listen up. When someone cares about you, they don’t expect or want _thanks_ for doing the shit that they should do anyway. Got it?”

“... Got it.”

“You don’t sound too sure. Do I need to repeat myself?”

“No, I’ve got it. I promise.”

He doesn’t really. But he actually _doesn’t_ want to have to sit through that tirade again. Jason had seemed genuinely irritated. Now, though, he’s back to his usual demeanor of _whatever_. 

It’s weird. Jason just admitted to _caring about him_. Which he’s known, logically, because they’re a family, even if it’s the weirdest family ever, but it’s something else entirely to hear it acknowledged verbally.

“I care about you too,” Dick says. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said that. But I do. A lot.”

Jason snorts. “You care about people too _much_ , Dickface. Time to redirect some of that to yourself.”

He wants to tell Jason that there’s nothing about himself to care for, but he knows that for some reason Jason would object. 

So would Damian, and Tim, and Bruce, and Alfred and Barbara and everyone else.

He wonders if everyone is telling the same lie. 

* * *

“I am truly the most cunning,” Tim says to him a couple days later. “More cunning than a fox that’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University.”

(He must have been watching TV with Alfred again. Blackadder is one of Alfred’s favorite shows, so quintessentially British.)

“I’ve ordered a door. It’s on its way.”

“As in, an opening to a room.”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t aware that those had become a critical part of the Bat arsenal.”

“Very funny. No, it’s to replace the one that you busted in Rose’s suite.”

“... Why?”

Because… it needs a door?”

“It’s--”

It’s a nice gesture, is what it is. But that place has been _corrupted_ \-- doesn’t Tim understand? Other people have been there. It can’t be what it once was. 

“I learned my lesson about prying,” Tim says. It’s disconcerting, the way he always seems to know what Dick’s thinking. “And I won’t ever go in there once we get this done. I promise. And like I said, Jason has no clue.”

Not only has Tim already ordered the door, but it’s delivered about thirty minutes after he breaks the news to Dick. Apparently, shippers have incredibly precise tracking these days, and Tim had wiled away the morning by watching the truck's GPS dot make its way through the map of the city. 

It's a covert affair, in the most ridiculous way. Either Alfred truly doesn't know or he's just pretending for their sake, but when the delivery men drop it off, it's Tim who gets the privilege of hauling it upstairs to the very end of the third floor. 

"Have you ever installed a door?" Dick asks.

"No," Tim says, "but it’s not that bad. I watched _two_ Youtube tutorials.”

It turns out to be… harder than Tim had made it sound. 

“Maybe we could start our own home repair show,” Tim says after the third time he’s broken off a drill bit in the doorframe. “We can call it Home Disimprovement.”

“No one would let us anywhere near their house.”

“It’s okay,” Tim says. “We have the whole _manor_ to film in.”

Alfred would throw them out by the ears if he knew what they were up to. Although-- there’s no way he _hasn’t_ heard them. They’ve dropped the door twice, and the screaming of the power drill has been truly horrendous. 

A couple of hours later, they stand back to survey their work, and something seems a little off.

"Did we really just install the door upside down?" Dick says. "Is that something that actually happened?"

“The doorknob seems low,” Tim says, “but I thought it was just the way it came.”

Dick sits down on the floor and stares up at their catastrophe. The door, so painstakingly chosen and so carefully brought upstairs, is upside down. It hangs a little lopsided off its hinges, the top tightened more than the bottom.

It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous and funny.

For the first time ever, in these rooms, he starts to laugh. Tim shoots him a look of alarm, then softens when he sees Dick's mirth. Soon he's smiling too, and then the suite begins to ring with laughter.

“Do you want to fix it?” Tim asks, once they’ve quieted down. 

“God, no, it’ll take another two hours and this time we’d probably hang it backwards.” 

Tim helps him pick up the scattered belongings he’d shoved off the vanity in his fit of… emotion. They salvage Rose’s photo from the broken glass encasing it, and they manage to find all of the sterling silver ballerinas. To retrieve the last one, Tim crawls up under the chaise longue.

“We can use electrolysis to clean up the tarnish,” he says after he scoots back out, holding his prize speculatively between his index finger and thumb. He bravely does not mention the fifty years of cobwebs covering his body. 

“I think…” Dick starts. “I think, actually, that I like them like that.”

After they’ve cleaned up the majority of their mess, they go back downstairs. They find Alfred in the kitchen, puttering around as he preps things for lunch. He has a suspiciously neutral look on his face.

“I hope that you two have been having an excellent afternoon,” he says, as if he hasn’t just been serenaded by two hours of construction noise. 

Tim goes for one of Alfred’s homemade fruit and nut bars. They’re pretty delicious, better than the premade ones found at the store. Then again, everything Alfred makes is better than the stuff from the stores.

“Master Dick,” Alfred says, “would you like some blueberries?” 

Blueberries.

He can handle those. But...

“They aren’t in season,” he says. Alfred only ever buys things that are in season and local. Something about a more holistic and natural diet. 

“They are in season in Florida,” Alfred says imperiously. “Must I pull up the map?” 

“No,” Dick says, “that’s fine. I’ll-- I’ll take them.” 

Alfred gives him a bowl of blueberries that he picks at while Tim continues to click around on his laptop.

“Look,” he says, once Alfred’s left the kitchen, “what I found at Sotheby’s.” He turns his laptop towards Dick. 

It’s a near-exact match of the old screen he’d torn down. The headline says it dates from 1912.

“... Why is it $6700?” 

“ _Because_ ,” Tim says, “this one comes from the estate of one of Gotham’s first film actresses, who _also_ happened to be an acquaintance of Rose Wayne.” 

“There’s no way you just happened to find that in the ten minutes we’ve been downstairs.” 

Tim blinks at him, which is confirmation enough.

“On the bright side,” he says, “it’ll be delivered in three days, and it’ll cover up that messed-up door perfectly.” 

* * *

He’s at the informal breakfast nook, picking at a bowl of Alfred’s specially imported blueberries, when Bruce finds him. He’s still dressed from his day at work, in those uncomfortable shoes and tight tie, and yet he seems like he doesn’t care about getting out of the suit. 

He seems like he’s focused on Dick, all that gentleness and concern in his eyes. 

“Can we talk?” he says. “I don’t want to interrupt.” 

“It’s fine,” Dick says. “I’m just having a blueberry beauty contest. The most beautiful one gets eaten and I move on down the line from there.” 

“Delightfully morbid.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s just a reenactment of real life.” 

Bruce pours himself some ice water, then takes off his coat and sits down. He doesn’t reply because there’s nothing much to _say_ to that. It sounds like a demented children’s game, and maybe it is. 

“I wanted to talk about… things that have happened recently. And in the past.” 

It’s like he feels the need to ask for permission.

“Go for it,” Dick says. _This_ blueberry is rounder than _that_ blueberry, but it’s also not quite as blue. Maybe he should come up with a list that ranks each attribute by level of importance. 

“I looked at Leslie’s medical report from back then.”

So much for subtle. Bruce has never been wonderful at easing his way into delicate conversations. 

“... So? Not like you haven’t seen it before.”

“Yes, but I was blind,” Bruce says. “I was so happy to have you back that I didn’t look deeply enough into it.”

“I didn’t want you to know.”

“I don’t blame you. But you still needed help.”

“If anyone had tried, I’d have denied it, straight up and down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For--” Bruce waves a hand expansively over Dick, the table, himself, everything. “For all of this.”

“You mean Slade?” 

“Partly, yes.” 

“I made the choice to… do that.”

“Children can’t make choices like that for themselves.”

“I wasn’t a child.”

“Yes, Dick, you _were_.”

Bruce slides a photo across the table. It’s of Dick. In it, he’s concentrating intensely on weighing out flour in the kitchen. His tongue is poking out between his lips and he’s leaned forward onto the counter to read the tiny markings on the scale. 

Dick doesn’t keep a lot of pictures of himself. Hardly any, in fact. He’s always considered it narcissistic to take selfies, or keep photos of oneself on the fridge, so all the pictures he has are old stuff from Haly’s, and the formal family portraits that Alfred had mandated. It’s odd, to look down at this and see what’s recognizably himself, and not remember having posed for it. 

“Who took this?” 

“Alfred,” says Bruce. “He has a lot of candid shots of the family.”

“Creepy,” Dick says, without meaning it. 

He looks more closely at himself. He’s thin, and not in an active, healthy way. Dick remembers that-- how, when he’d gotten back, he’d found that he hadn’t grown at all, and that furthermore, his clothes hung off him, clothes that had fit him perfectly before he’d… gone. 

In the picture, he’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He remembers that too. He hadn’t been able to wear constricting clothing, and he got such panicky hot flashes that the AC in the house was kept at 65 degrees, even as the late summer heat transitioned into fall’s chill. 

There’s a boot on his foot, stabilizing the broken ankle that still, even a decade later, sometimes gives him a little trouble. Healing lacerations sprawl across his arms and legs. They’re dark red and purple.

From the car crash. 

He flips the photo over. Alfred’s spidery scrawl says, _Richard Grayson, age 14_. It’s dated for the end of September-- just a few weeks after he’d escaped. 

“Does that look like an adult?”

Here’s the thing. Dick has never been a _large_ person. It’s in his genetics. Acrobats are compact-- muscled, but compact. Flexibility decreases with size. Every person has only so many vertebrae, so many bones, and the longer those bones are, the more difficult it is to create the tight curves that gymnasts and acrobats need. And furthermore, shorter bodies are more mechanically efficient. That’s why male Olympic gymnasts rarely exceed five and a half feet, and below five feet is the norm for females. Dick is actually an outlier at 5’10, and, by necessity of his profession, has always intentionally kept on a bit more muscle than is natural for him. Bruce had trained it into him early. 

But in this photo-- the carefully built and maintained musculature is nearly gone. He looks wasted away. His breastbone and clavicles are sharply visible, and the bones in his wrist are so delicate. 

Bruce is a tall man, heavily muscled and proportioned, and Jason is even moreso. Tim is different, built in a more lithe way, but it suits him, and he’s still young enough to not have fully filled out. And Damian-- Damian’s twelve, but he’s got Bruce’s genetics. He’s tall for his age, with a good amount of muscle. He’ll grow up to be Bruce’s mirror image. Even two years younger, he’s substantially bigger than Dick is in this picture. 

“I was pretty small back then,” Dick says eventually, putting the picture down and sliding it back to Bruce. 

“You were small because you were a _child_.”

“I had the mentality of an adult.”

“No,” Bruce sighs, “no, you really didn’t. Because if you had, Dick-- god, if you had, then you--”

“I wouldn’t _what_? Have gotten captured?”

“ _No_ ,” Bruce exhales, loudly and with intensity. “No, if you had, then maybe you’d have been less affected by what I’d told you. All the things I said without regard for what might happen if you actually followed them to the letter.”

“... What?”

“You’re glad Damian didn’t try to resist Slade.”

“Of course I am.”

“Then try, just for a minute, to think of how you might have felt if he _did_ resist, and he got hurt, all because he thought you’d rather him do that than ‘give in’.”

“I’ve already talked to him about it. He knows how I feel.” 

It’s what motivated him, after all. That deep, soul-rending despair and sense of utter desperation-- the knowledge that he’d do anything, _everything_ to keep it from happening, to the most extreme of extremes. 

And he had done it. The one thing Bruce had always condemned. 

“I _asked_ Jason to kill Slade,” he says, and he knows it’s a change of topic, but it’s alright, because surely neither of them want to continue going down _that_ road. What had happened had _happened_ , and there’s no reason to dredge up every single misery Slade had inflicted upon him. 

Bruce doesn’t react. 

“I know,” he says.

“Did he tell you?” 

“No, but I know he wouldn’t have done it otherwise. He didn’t want to cause you any more guilt.” 

“Any _more_ guilt?” 

“You’ll have to talk to him,” Bruce shrugs. 

“I’m waiting for you to tell me how horrible I am.” It sounds like he’s being sardonic but he’s really, really not.

“You aren’t horrible. It’s _my_ weakness. My failing. And-- in other cases, I would be disappointed. But, Dick, this is-- that was-- that man--”

“Deserved it.” 

Bruce swallows several times, and reaches for the ice water. Once he has his hand around it, though, he doesn’t drink.

“Yes,” he says. “And I’m not so much of a hypocrite that I can’t see the contradiction between what I’m saying and what I’ve always preached.” 

This… acceptance? This understanding? 

It’s bizarre, and uncomfortable, and if Bruce really knew the truth he wouldn’t be saying such things at all. 

“You don’t get it,” Dick says. 

“Then help me to.” 

People should be more careful about what they wish for. But Bruce has asked for it, and all these things that he’s held under the water for so long are thrashing, now, fighting to come above and reveal themselves. 

“I jumped,” he says.

“Pardon?” 

“I jumped,” he repeats, so slowly that it can’t be misunderstood. “He took me to a hit-- like with Damian-- and before he shot I _jumped off the fucking building_.”

“To escape, or… to die?” 

He laughs. 

“I don’t even know. The opportunity presented itself, and I took it.” 

“Dick,” Bruce says. 

“And that’s not _all_. You know, when I got away, how it was a car accident?” 

Bruce waits silently. His expression is still one of patience and love. Dick has to fix that. He has to wash that away and get what he really deserves. 

“I caused it. I pulled the wheel away from him, and I made us crash. At highway speeds.” 

“That’s--” 

And somehow he has to dig this pit even deeper. He’s going for it, now; if he’s going to get crucified he may as well reveal _all_ his sins. That way he won’t have to do it over again. 

“And, I knew it could kill him, and me, and I _didn’t care_. All that mattered was that it fucking stopped. So, see, this whole killing him thing, it wasn’t just based on Damian, Bruce, I tried _ten years ago_ and I never told you because I was too much of a fucking coward to see your reaction. You would have realized how _rotten_ I was, and I just couldn’t bear it.” 

There. He’s lanced the wound, and all the infection has come rushing out. There’s no way that Bruce will be able to say anything but how awful Dick really is. He waits, realizing that he’s breathing hard, and slams his shaking hands down on the table so they don’t reveal how nervous he is to hear Bruce's reply. He knows what he’ll say, but there’s still that tiny thread and threat of hope that-- that--

He’s not so bad after all.

Hope is a terrible thing.

“There are many logical rebuttals I could apply to your statements,” Bruce says finally, “but… I think that what you really need to hear is that _I don’t blame you_.” 

“ _What_?” 

“I don’t blame you. Or condemn you. Or any of the other things I’m sure you’ve told yourself over the years.” 

He’s speechless.

“Dick,” Bruce says, taking advantage of the quiet, “you were in an impossible situation. No one knows what it was like except you.” 

“I was a hero--” 

“You were a _child_ ,” Bruce corrects again. “A child that I, through my own rigid thinking, brainwashed into believing that it was better to suffer than to ‘submit’ to the enemy.” 

“Oh,” Dick laughs, broken out of his shock. “I _submitted_ , alright. In every. single. way.” 

Silence.

“He really liked to hurt me,” he says, and he shouldn’t be saying this but he _is_. “It turned him on. Like, a lot. So I tried to keep quiet because it was all I could do.” 

Bruce’s eyes are closed. Dick imagines what his own face must look like right now-- crazed and seeking a reaction. It’s probably best that Bruce can’t see him. 

“But then-- but then, it got so bad that I found myself hoping that I’d _enjoy_ it instead. I was young, too young to really have _known_ , but I’d have done anything to make it hurt less.” 

Bruce opens his eyes. They’re watery. 

“Don’t cry,” Dick says. “You can’t cry.” 

“Why not?” 

“I’ve seen you cry four times now, and I’m the cause of two of them already, so if you cry _again_ it’ll be 60% of your tears coming from me, and I don’t want that.” 

Bruce blinks repeatedly. 

“You haven’t seen everything,” he says, but at least his eyes are a bit drier. “When we got you back-- god, Dick, I cried for _hours_ that night, and then-- every day-- and I still--” 

“I was probably too high to remember,” Dick says. Maybe that will lighten the mood, distract Bruce. “Leslie has always been liberal with the analgesics.” 

Bruce has to know what he’s doing, but he goes along with it anyway. Thank god. 

“Dick,” he says, and then he’s reaching across the table, and he’s got Dick’s hands with his own, so large and warm and stable. 

“... Yeah?”

“I don’t know what to say, except that I love you, and that I don’t judge you, and that I’m _sorry_ , and that I’ll do anything I can if it’ll help you.” 

“I feel like you’re lying.”

“I know it feels that way, but I promise you I’m not.” 

Bruce’s hands hold his for a few moments of silence. Then, tentatively, as if he’s afraid of Dick’s reaction, he speaks again.

“Dinah… is a good person to talk to.” 

He jerks his hands away by impulse. “What, like, as a _therapist_?”

“Yes.” 

“That sounds nice,” Dick says. 

Bruce’s head flips up in surprise, and Dick feels sickly satisfied. He marches on. 

“Let’s go to one of our closest allies and tell her all about how I fucked up, got myself captured, and ended up being held for three months, and how ten years later I’m still a nervous wreck about it."

Bruce doesn’t reply.

“I’m struck by the brilliance of this idea. I’m sure she won’t use that information against us at all later.”

“That’s… really not something I’m worried about.”

“You weren’t worried about me getting taken prisoner, either.” 

Bruce closes his eyes again and lets out a long, trembling sigh. 

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Dick admits. “You told me not to go off by myself.” 

“That doesn’t absolve me of responsibility.”

“I disobeyed and went anyway.”

“I’m supposed to _protect_ you. I let my guard down, and you were-- you were _gone_.” 

“I was,” Dick agrees. 

“The way I felt-- it’s nothing compared to what you went through--” 

“I didn’t _go through_ anything,” Dick snaps. That makes him sound so weak. As if he was subjected to all of it. _Going through._ What is he, a blanket _going through_ the wash cycle? _Going through._ Helpless and pathetic.

“... I talked to her.” 

“What?”

“When you were-- away. And when you came back. I talked to her.” 

Dick feels like slapping him. Bruce, who’s always maintained that secrecy is the best option and that you can never really trust _anyone_ outside of the family-- Bruce is sitting here right now, across from him, telling him with a straight face that he _spoke about this._

“You what.” 

He doesn’t know why he’s repeating himself. He understands completely. 

“Dinah only knew the broad strokes--” 

“You’re telling me that you _told_ someone. About it. About everything.” 

“Dick, it’s nothing to be ashamed of--” 

“Not just _someone_. Dinah! Who was our _den mother_. You told _Dinah_ and didn’t tell me about it?!” 

“She asked you if you wanted to talk, back then.” 

“Yeah, and _I fucking didn’t_ , which is why I don’t understand how you thought it was okay to tell everything to her anyway!” 

Bruce isn’t snapping back at him, which is even more infuriating. When Bruce and Jason fight, everything can be used as a verbal weapon-- the past, present, and future all present ample opportunities to inflict hurt. But with Dick--

With Dick--

Bruce keeps being so _fucking_ gentle.

“I didn’t want to start an argument by bringing this up,” he says evenly, “and if it’s upsetting you then I’ll stop.” 

Dick throws it out like a caltrop, all sharp points and ready to cripple. “When,” he says, “has _anyone_ ever stopped _anything_ just because it was upsetting me?” 

He knows he’s exaggerating. Bruce has many faults, but he’d rather die than harm Dick intentionally. And the rest of his family-- no one’s done anything hurtful to him, not ever. Well, excluding Jason’s stint of… behavior. But that’s excused, and Dick’s always been such a golden boy, favored by everyone.

But right now-- all he feels is those hands, and the heaviness on his body, and the breath in his ear, and it’s happened so often he doesn’t know why it’s upsetting him. It’s really not-- it’s really not--

“I’m going,” Dick says, standing up and shoving his chair away. 

“Where _to_?” 

“Jason’s,” Dick snaps over his shoulder. “Is that alright with you? Is that an _approved location_?”

“Just… stay safe.” 

He has to have the last word, so right before he slams the door, he bites out, “Never have, never _will_.” 

As he’s striding toward his car, he has the presence of mind to pull out his phone and give Jason a call. It wouldn’t do to drive all the way there and find him gone. 

“What is it?” 

Jason never wastes time with the expected greeting of “hello”. 

“Bruce is being… _him_ , and I need to not be here. Can I come over?” 

“Yeah,” Jason says, and it’s like he hasn’t even thought about saying no. “Yeah, just don’t do anything fuckin’ stupid on your way over. Come straight here.” 

What _is it_ that people think he’s going to do? He’s not a danger to himself, or to others. He’s so tired of being treated like this. 

When he gets off the phone, he turns it off. It’ll blockade Bruce’s inevitable calls and texts where he sounds so _reasonable_ , so reasonable Dick can’t even be mad at him. 

Right now, he _needs_ to be mad. 

The drive goes by quickly. He doesn’t let himself think about what he and Bruce talked about, because if he does-- if he does, then he just won’t stop. It’ll be a carousel of toxic thoughts and it’ll keep going round and round till the machinery breaks. 

He’s proud of himself for being aware of that, at least. 

He turns the radio off too. All the top songs are about _love_ , and _dating_ , and _having sex_ , and all those stupid things that people never stop to consider deeply. The entire world seems like it runs on the power of sex and what it does to people’s minds, and he hates it.

He hates it.

Jason’s waiting for him on the front steps as he pulls up. Dick wonders if he’s been standing there this whole time, like a lighthouse searching for a lost crew. He sits for a minute, and then Jason’s up at his window, tapping on the glass.

“Come on,” he says. “Only teenagers get to sit moodily in cars.”

They go into the house, which is warm and smells like lasagna. For a second he panics, and then remembers that Jason’s not the type to guilt him into eating. Mercifully, they walk straight past the kitchen and into the living room, where a man and a woman are paused on screen, both wearing bath towels.

“... what are you _watching_?” 

“Desperate Housewives,” Jason says, throwing a pillow off the couch and onto the armchair to make room for Dick. “Third season.” 

“Didn’t take you for a soap opera type of man,” Dick says. He sits down and the couch halfway envelops him. It’s soothing, like a hug. 

“It’s not a soap opera,” Jason says. “It’s a dramedy.” 

He goes to the storage ottoman and pulls out a blanket, then tosses it to Dick.

“It’s not cold in here,” Dick says confusedly. It’s not that he doesn’t _want_ a blanket, per se, but--

“Yeah, but you love blankets.” 

It’s true. He feels weird without one, even on summer days. It’s like he needs to be covered up. It had started-- it had started back when--

Oh god.

“I do,” he admits. 

Jason sits down on the other side of the couch and grabs for the remote. 

“So,” he says, “all you need to know for this scene is that Gaby and her husband are going through a shitty divorce and she wants him to be jealous.” 

“Gaby?”

“Eva Longoria.” 

Jason presses play. Eva Longoria and a male companion stand in a bedroom. She convinces him to help her slide the bed up against the opposite wall. On the other side is what he assumes to be the husband. Gaby gets onto the bed and begins shaking the frame into the wall. The husband looks scandalized. 

The man with her takes off his shoes and says, “Don’t start without me.” 

Great. A sex scene. As if he hasn’t seen enough of those. Lived enough of those. At this point it’s so fucking old. It’s never _not_ been old. When he was young, his parents would cover his eyes at the racy parts in movies, but now-- it’s been ten years since he started having sex, and he’s never had a single positive thought about it.

People.

They’re fucking disgusting. 

Gaby scurries over to him on the bed and says, “You and I are not going to have sex tonight.” The man acts confused, and she follows up with, “I’m sorry, no offense. You’re a nice guy, but I am just _not into you_ that way.” 

The man puts his hands on her robe. Dick closes his eyes. 

This is the part where the man pins her to the bed and forces her into it. And then the rest of the episode-- the rest of the season, really-- will be about how she’s _so_ ruined by it, when really, who hasn’t had a little bit of coerced sex? It’s so _normal_. For him, it’s actually blasé. Why make it a plot point? 

“Back off,” the woman snaps, and he opens his eyes to see the man stepping away, as if he’s actually listening to her. He accuses her of using him to make her husband jealous, and he’s mad, but-- _he leaves_.

He leaves without touching her.

“Hey,” Dick says. 

Jason pauses the TV and glances over to him. “What?” 

"Does that… actually happen?"

It's such a naive question, and he's embarrassed to have let it slip.

“I wouldn’t have kept watching this if it had something that would remind you,” Jason says, and Dick shoves that away. That’s not what he’s talking about. Not the scene-- but, in real life.

Comprehension makes its way onto Jason’s face before he says anything to elaborate. 

"Listen," Jason says, "I've had a lot of sex." At Dick's alarmed expression, he clarifies with, " _Consensual_ sex."

"Good for you," Dick mutters.

Jason continues on as if he hadn't heard him. 

"And sometimes it feels great, and other times it's awkward as hell, but no one involved should _ever_ be forced, or coerced, or in any other way not _want_ it."

"I can't even imagine what that would be like," Dick says, and he's shocked at his own honesty. 

Jason looks at him contemplatively, eyes turned emerald in the dim light. He seems to think hard for a moment, because his lips twinge a bit tighter and his head tilts almost imperceptibly to one side. 

"One day you'll know," he says, voice surprisingly soft. "One day you'll find the right person, and you'll know."

"What if I never want it? To do _that_?"

"If they're the right person, they'll understand that too."

"I'm too fucked up for anyone to understand," Dick says. 

"Hey," Jason says, more firmly now, "you've seen a lot of shit. But that's not what makes you who you are."

"Sometimes it feels like it."

"I get it," he says. "Some days I wake up feeling like I can't breathe. As if I'm still buried. Or in the Pit." 

"... We're both fucked up."

"It's what we have to deal with. It fuckin’ sucks but it's how life is for us." 

"It's not _fair_." 

And he's saying this to Jason, of all people, whose entire life has been an unending parade of _unfair_. Born where he was, to the parents he had, in that environment-- he'd had less than a hundredth of the _fairness_ any of the rest of them knew. 

But instead of telling him he's being ridiculous, Jason just says, "I know." 

And it feels like that's enough. That someone does know, and they're not telling him that he's going to be fine, or that he can talk about his feelings, or anything else stupid like that. 

"There's only two options," Jason says. "Either we live with it, or we don't."

He hits play again, and as Dick sits there with him, in the darkened living room, he ignores the TV and thinks-- 

Maybe that’s all life is.

He just has to keep playing through the pauses. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... that's all for this one, folks! I struggled a lot with this chapter as there's not really a plot per se, so I'd love love love to hear feedback and know if y'all enjoyed it. As always, your comments and kind words propel me to write things faster.
> 
> I have another fic planned for after this, which will be more of a casefic while still focusing on Dick's continuing issues. Keep posted and thank you so much for reading!


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